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Bread

Egg Bread and Butter Bread

A cornmeal bread made with boiled hominy, eggs, butter, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Egg Bread and Butter Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the milk and pour it over the cornmeal.

  2. Add the mashed hominy, eggs, salt, and butter; stir well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a deep dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes to 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Boiled hominy
Adds body and moisture, giving the cornbread a tender, porridge-like crumb.
Cornmeal
Provides the main structure and the characteristic corn flavor and texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firmly as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and keeps the batter moist during baking.

The step that matters

Pouring boiling milk over the cornmeal. Hot liquid softens the cornmeal and gelatinizes its starch, so it absorbs the liquid evenly. This helps the batter bake moist rather than gritty.

“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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