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Dessert

Johnny Cake

A cornmeal-based cake baked with butter, sugar, sour milk, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Johnny Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the cornmeal, sugar, sour milk, baking soda, and baking powder to the melted butter.

  3. Mix well and add enough flour to create a thick batter.

  4. Finally, beat in the egg.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a deep pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Cornmeal
Gives the cake its grainy texture and characteristic corn flavor.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the leavening to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Baking powder
Adds additional leavening so the cake rises and becomes lighter in texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the batter.

The step that matters

Beat in the egg last. Adding the egg after the leavening and liquids are combined keeps the batter from being overmixed and lets the baking soda and sour milk react promptly, so the cake rises well.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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