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Baking

Corn-drops

Corn Drops are a baked cornmeal batter mixed with milk, eggs, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

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. Heat 2 cups of cold milk in a double boiler until boiling.

  2. Mix cornmeal with ½ cup of cold milk and salt, then stir into the boiling milk.

  3. Add melted butter and cook until the batter is thick like mush.

  4. Remove from heat and beat the egg yolks separately from the whites.

  5. Stir the yolks into the batter, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until brown, about 15 to 20 minutes, being careful not to 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 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

Eggs
Whipped whites add lift and a light, airy texture, while yolks add richness and binding.
Cornmeal
Its starch thickens with the hot milk, giving the batter body and a mush-like structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and turns it into a thick batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, flavor, and a more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that gives the drops their lift. Stirring them vigorously knocks that air out, leaving dense, flat results, so the whites should be folded in gently.

“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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