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Bread

Susan's Corn Bread

A quick oven-baked cornbread made with flour, cornmeal, sugar, and butter.

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

Susan's Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the white flour, yellow cornmeal, salt, sugar, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  2. Mix the dry ingredients with the beaten egg and enough sweet milk to create a thin batter.

  3. Stir in the melted butter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a well-greased shallow pan.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

White flour
Provides the main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Yellow cornmeal
Adds the characteristic grainy texture and corn flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give it structure as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batch to produce gas that helps the bread rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to leaven the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a well-greased shallow pan. Batter with leavening starts gas formation as soon as it is mixed, so it should be baked promptly. A well-greased pan keeps the cornbread from sticking, and a shallow pan lets heat reach the centre so it bakes through evenly.

“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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