Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Corn Oakes
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.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make and bake
In a bowl, mix the corn meal, flour, eggs, melted butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, and sugar until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake in the preheated oven 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Indian corn meal
- Provides the main body and grainy texture of the cake.
- Flour
- Adds structure so the batter holds together when baked.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the cake as it bakes.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so baking soda can react and lift it.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas for rising.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown. Baking soda and cream of tartar start reacting as soon as the batter is mixed, so the batter should go into the oven promptly. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction at the surface, so judge doneness by colour and a set centre rather than by time alone.
“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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