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Dessert

Delicate Corn-rolls

A light, baked roll made with cornmeal, wheat flour, milk, eggs, butter, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Delicate Corn-rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mush

  1. Scald ½ quart of the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and cornmeal mixed smooth with a little cold milk. Stir and cook until thick like mush.

  3. Stir in the remaining cold milk mixed with the beaten egg yolks.

Mix the batter

  1. Sift in the flour with the cream of tartar.

  2. Add the baking soda dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot milk.

  3. Finally, fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Bake in gem pans at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 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.

  1. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in last, lighten it for a tender, airy crumb.
Cornmeal
Provides the corn flavor and body, thickening into a mush that gives the rolls their structure.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-forming structure so the rolls hold their shape as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and baking powder to produce gas that makes the rolls rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda, helping the rise and a lighter texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and flour and cooks into the mush base.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that expands in the oven. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in the batter so the rolls rise light instead of dense.

“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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