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Alabama Corn-crust

A simple cornmeal crust baked with sugar, salt, water, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Alabama Corn-crust

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. Stir the boiling water into the cornmeal, sugar, and salt; mix well.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg.

Bake

  1. Spread the mixture thinly in small biscuit pans.

  2. Smooth the top with a knife dipped in cold water and score it.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until slightly browned, about 10 minutes.

  4. Watch to ensure it does not scorch.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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 crust and gives it its corn flavour and grainy texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when baked.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Watch to ensure it does not scorch. The mixture is spread thinly, so it can go from lightly browned to burnt quickly. Sugar browns and darkens faster at high oven heat, so checking early and often prevents bitter, scorched 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.

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