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 ↓
Baked Corn Meal Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the base
Boil 1 cup of cornmeal in 2 cups of milk until it thickens.
Add 1 cup of molasses, 1 tablespoon of butter, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Stir in 1 pint of cold milk.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,123 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Thickens into a soft, porridge-like body when boiled in liquid, giving the pudding its structure.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the cornmeal absorbs and that keeps the baked pudding moist.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, deep flavor, and moisture, and helps the top brown during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
The step that matters
Boil the cornmeal until it thickens. Cornmeal starch only swells and thickens fully when it is boiled in liquid. If the mixture is not thick before the other ingredients go in, the starch stays underdeveloped and the baked pudding can turn out grainy and loose.
“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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