Skip to main content
Main

Corn Cakes

Corn cakes are fried batter made with eggs, milk, butter, corn, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the beaten eggs, milk or cream, and melted butter.

  2. Add the corn and mix well.

  3. Stir in salt and flour until you achieve the right thickness.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat pork fat in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat and fry until golden brown on both sides.

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. Corn + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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 set the cakes as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the batter so the cakes hold their shape.
Corn
Adds sweetness and bulk, giving the cakes their main body.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and loosens the batter for a tender texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy instead of forming a crisp, golden crust. Medium heat lets the outside brown before the centre is cooked through.

“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 corn cakes recipes

Green 20Indian 3Virginia 3 See all 125 →

You might also like

Corn FrittersCorn Fritters203 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesCream of Corn SoupCream of Corn Soup50 recipes