Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Corn Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix the eggs, molasses, sour milk, and baking soda in a bowl until well combined.
Add the cornmeal, graham flour, and salt and mix thoroughly.
Steam
Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.
Steam for 1.5 hours.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Bind the batter and add structure as the cornbread sets.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the batter.
- Sour milk
- Supplies acidity and moisture, and reacts with the baking soda to lighten the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main body and the characteristic grainy texture of the cornbread.
- Graham flour
- Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome flavour with some gluten to hold the crumb.
The step that matters
Mixing the baking soda with the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to release carbon dioxide. Combining it with the sour milk and eggs early lets the gas form in the batter, so the bread rises when it steams. Waiting too long before steaming lets the gas escape and leaves a denser result.
“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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