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 ↓
Corn 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking powder together thoroughly.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together, then add the melted butter.
Combine the egg mixture with the flour mixture, then quickly mix in the milk.
If using sour milk, dissolve the baking soda in ¼ cup of hot water before adding it to the mixture.
Bake
Pour the batter into a flat pan and bake for 30 minutes.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the bread its coarse, grainy texture and characteristic corn flavor.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides gluten-based structure so the bread holds together after baking.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the cornbread rises and turns light and open.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
- Milk
- Hydrates the dry ingredients and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
The step that matters
Mix the milk in quickly. Once liquid meets the flour and leavening, gas begins forming and gluten develops with stirring. Overmixing toughens the crumb and loses rise, so combine just until the batter is smooth.
“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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