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 ↓
Corn Bread
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Make and bake
Add cornmeal, flour, sour milk, melted butter, salt, and baking soda to the eggs and mix well until combined.
Pour the batter into square baking tins.
Bake until golden brown.
Let cool before serving.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the bread its grainy body and characteristic corn flavor.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides gluten-based structure so the bread holds its shape.
- Sour milk
- Supplies moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the batter.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the bread.
The step that matters
Mix well until combined. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk, so the batter should be mixed promptly and then baked. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cornbread tough and dense.
“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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