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Dessert

Indian Corn Pone

A baked cornmeal cake with flour, butter, egg, milk, and cream topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Indian Corn Pone

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine cornmeal, white flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Add clarified butter or olive oil and the egg.

  3. Gradually mix in sweet milk until a soft dough forms.

Bake

  1. Grease bread tins and fill with the dough.

  2. Spread thick cream over the top.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until dark 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Yellow cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the corn pone its body and flavor.
White flour
Adds structure to the dough so it holds together rather than crumbling.
Egg
Binds the dough and helps set its structure as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the pone rise and turn lighter.
Clarified butter or olive oil
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture to the top, encouraging browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Baking until dark brown. Cornmeal dough needs a hot oven to set and brown properly. Baking too briefly leaves the centre gummy, while the surface colour shows how far the Maillard browning has progressed.

“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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