Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Aunt Jenny's Egg-bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix cornmeal and milk in a bowl.
Break in the eggs and beat thoroughly.
Add the melted lard and mix well.
Just before baking, stir in the baking powder.
Bake
Grease a pan or muffin tins and preheat it until hot.
Pour the mixture into the hot greased pan and bake.
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.
-
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main body and grainy texture of the bread.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to make the bread rise.
- Lard
- Adds fat for tenderness and a moister crumb.
The step that matters
Stir in the baking powder just before baking. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, so waiting to add it and baking right away keeps that gas trapped for a better rise.
“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.
More egg bread recipes
You might also like
Cornbread345 recipes
Bread Pudding336 recipes
Milk Bread Rolls242 recipes
Potato Bread124 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.