Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
A Nice Johnny Cake
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.
In another bowl, combine the sour cream and sour milk.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk 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
- Cornmeal
- Provides the coarse, grainy texture that defines a johnny cake.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and richness, and its acidity helps tenderize the crumb.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the leaveners to lift the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour dairy to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
- Baking powder
- Supplies additional leavening so the batter rises during baking.
- All-purpose flour
- Gives the batter structure so it holds together when baked.
The step that matters
Stir the wet and dry ingredients until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough and dense. Stopping once the streaks disappear keeps it tender.
“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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