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Famous Southern Corn Bread

A thick batter corn bread made with sour milk, boiled rice, cornmeal, and baking soda, baked until done.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Famous Southern Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add sour milk, cold boiled rice, salt, sugar, and melted butter to the eggs.

  3. Stir in enough cornmeal to create a fairly thick batter.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little boiling water and pour it into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a hot greased pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  3. Serve while hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 structure as they set in the oven.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the bread.
Cornmeal
Forms the body of the bread, giving it its characteristic grainy structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas, helping the cornbread rise.
Melted butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and encourages browning on the crust.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a hot greased pan. Batter poured into a hot pan begins setting and browning right away, which helps form a crisp crust and a better rise. A cold pan lets the batter spread and bake less evenly.

“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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