Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
White Corn Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Scald the cornmeal with 2 cups of boiling water in a bowl.
Mix in the softened butter and beaten egg.
Add milk until the batter is thin enough to pour into the pan.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased pan, making it about 1 inch thick.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the body of the bread and gives it its corn flavor and crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness as the bread bakes.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and helps it set into a firm structure as it bakes.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it can be poured into the pan.
The step that matters
Add milk until the batter is thin enough to pour. Milk sets the batter's moisture. Too little leaves a stiff batter that bakes dense and dry, while too much makes a loose batter that spreads thin and bakes unevenly.
“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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