Name: Susie’s Spider Corn Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups corn meal; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 cups sour milk; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 tablespoons butter

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 ↓

Susie’s Spider Corn Cake

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 batter

Mix baking soda, salt, and corn meal in a bowl.
Gradually add the beaten eggs and sour milk, mixing until combined.

Bake

Heat a frying pan and grease the sides and bottom with butter.
Pour the mixture into the pan and place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven.
Bake for 20 minutes.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + eggtop 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

Corn meal: Forms the bulk of the cake and gives it its grainy, structured crumb.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help set the cake as it bakes.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Butter: Greases the pan and adds richness and browning at the edges.

“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.