Skip to main content
Main

Kentucky Corn Bread

A moist cornmeal and flour batter with pork cracklings baked into a corn bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,386 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Kentucky 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs separately.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the baking powder into the flour and cornmeal, then stir quickly.

  2. Add the melted lard, sugar, and sweet milk, mixing well.

  3. Fold in the pork cracklings and beat the mixture thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 30 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 + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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
Forms the main body of the bread and gives it its characteristic grainy texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, lifting the batter so the bread rises and becomes lighter.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-based structure that holds the crumb together alongside the cornmeal.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture and hydrates the dry ingredients into a batter.
Pork cracklings
Add fat, savory flavor, and crisp pieces throughout the bread.

The step that matters

Sifting the baking powder into the dry ingredients and stirring quickly. Baking powder begins releasing gas once it contacts liquid and heat, so stirring quickly and getting the batter into the oven promptly preserves its lifting power for a lighter crumb.

“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 cornbread recipes

Steamed 78Rye 18Southern 15Molasses 14Indian 11Virginia 11 See all 732 →

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes