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Dessert

Johnny Cake

A simple cornmeal and flour cake baked in a shallow pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Johnny Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add cornmeal and sugar.

  3. Melt the butter and add it to a well-beaten egg.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the other ingredients, then add the milk.

  5. Beat all together lightly.

Bake

  1. Bake in a greased shallow pan for 30 to 40 minutes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Provides the main structure as its starch sets during baking.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread a coarse, grainy texture and corn flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the bread rises lightly.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and cornmeal into a batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Beat all together lightly.. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, and vigorous beating makes the bread tough and dense. A light stir just until combined keeps the texture tender while the batter still holds its air and lift from the baking powder.

“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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