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Nonpareil Corn Bread

A quick baked corn bread made with Indian meal, flour, eggs, milk, lard, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Nonpareil Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Beat the eggs very thoroughly, separating the whites and yolks.

  3. Melt the lard.

Make the batter

  1. Sift the cream of tartar and baking soda into the Indian meal and flour while dry.

  2. Stir the dry mixture into the beaten eggs and melted lard. Beat the mixture vigorously.

  3. Pour the batter into a buttered mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake quickly for about 30 minutes.

  2. To cut the corn bread, hold the knife vertically and cut towards you.

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

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

  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. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and help the cornbread hold together as it bakes.
Indian meal
Cornmeal forms the bulk of the batter and gives the bread its corn flavour and texture.
Flour
Flour adds structure to the crumb, balancing the coarser cornmeal.
Milk
Milk adds moisture and helps hydrate the dry ingredients into a batter.
Baking soda
Baking soda reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Cream of tartar
Cream of tartar is an acid that reacts with baking soda, producing carbon dioxide for lift.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture vigorously. Vigorous beating incorporates air and fully combines the batter, while the baking soda and cream of tartar begin reacting. Working quickly after mixing helps keep the gas bubbles that give the bread its rise.

“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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