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Breakfast

Corn Breakfast Cakes

Small cakes made from flour and cornmeal with eggs and milk, baked in hot gem pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Corn Breakfast Cakes

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 ↓

Corn Breakfast Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Heat the gem pans.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.

  2. In another bowl, combine the sweet milk, cornmeal, beaten eggs, and softened butter.

  3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the hot gem pans.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.
Cornmeal
Gives the cakes their coarse, grainy texture and corn flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and moistens the batter so it can set.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into the hot gem pans. Batter poured into a preheated pan starts setting and browning right away, helping the cakes rise and release cleanly instead of sticking or spreading flat.

“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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