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Dessert

Plain Corn-drops

A simple baked corn drop cookie made with cornmeal, butter, milk, eggs, and water.

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 ↓

Plain Corn-drops

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 batter

  1. Pour the boiling water over the cornmeal, butter, and salt.

  2. Add the milk and beaten eggs, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto greased baking sheets.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 minutes, watching to prevent scorching.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. 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

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the drops and gives them their grainy, sturdy texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help the drops set and hold their shape as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter for dropping.

The step that matters

Watching the bake to prevent scorching. Cornmeal drops are small and thin at the edges, so they can darken quickly in a hot oven. Checking them near the end of the 15 to 20 minutes prevents burnt bottoms and bitter flavour.

“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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