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Virginia Corn Bread

A baked corn bread made with buttermilk, eggs, cornmeal, baking soda, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Virginia Corn Bread

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.

Make the batter

  1. Combine cornmeal, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Moisten the mixture with 2 cups of buttermilk.

  3. Mix baking soda with the remaining buttermilk and add to the bowl.

  4. Beat in the whole yolks of the eggs and melted butter.

  5. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a deep earthenware dish.

  2. Bake for 1 hour, starting on the grate.

  3. Move to the bottom of a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Buttermilk + peppertop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together542 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while the whites trap air that lifts the bread.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, and its acid reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acid to release gas that makes the bread rise.
Cornmeal
Forms the main body and gives the bread its coarse, crumbly texture.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites. That air expands in the oven and gives the cornbread its light, lifted texture, while stirring would deflate the batter.

“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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