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Dessert

Cornmeal Cake

A baked cake made with cornmeal, flour, brown sugar, eggs, butter, baking powder, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cornmeal Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter.

  2. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, brown sugar, eggs, baking powder, and melted butter.

  3. Add enough water to make the batter as thick as sponge cake.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cornmeal
Gives the cake its grainy, tender body and characteristic corn flavour.
Flour
Provides gluten-based structure so the cake holds together after baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give structure and moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, lifting the batter so the cake rises.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top turn golden brown.

The step that matters

Adding the water to a sponge-cake thickness. Cornmeal and flour absorb liquid at different rates, so the batter's consistency sets how it bakes. Too much water makes a thin batter that spreads and bakes poorly, while too little leaves a dense, dry cake. Stopping at a sponge-cake thickness gives a light, even 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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