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Bread

New Orleans Corn Bread

A quick baked cornbread made with cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, milk, lard, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

New Orleans Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sift together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Rub in the cold lard until well combined.

  4. Beat the eggs and add them along with the milk to the mixture. Mix into a moderately stiff batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow cake pan.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Forms the bulk of the crumb and gives the cornbread its characteristic texture and flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cornbread rises and becomes light.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and flour, adding moisture to the batter.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps it from drying out.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the cornbread hold its shape.

The step that matters

Mix into a moderately stiff batter. Cornmeal absorbs liquid slowly and overmixing or too much liquid can make the batter loose or heavy, while too little leaves a dry, crumbly result. Getting the consistency right gives an even rise and a tender 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.

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