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 ↓
Johnny Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix sweet milk, buttermilk, salt, baking soda, and melted butter.
Gradually add cornmeal until the mixture can be rolled into a sheet ½ inch thick.
Bake and serve
Spread the mixture onto a buttered baking tin or shallow pan.
Bake for 40 minutes, basting with melted butter every 5-6 minutes until browned and crisp.
Break into pieces and serve warm for lunch or tea, with sweet or buttermilk.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,674 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + buttermilktop 41% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Buttermilk
- Adds tang and moisture, and reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas, lifting the batter and lightening its texture.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the body of the bread, giving it its structure and grainy texture.
- Sweet milk
- Provides moisture and richness, softening the cornmeal into a workable batter.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown and crisp during baking.
The step that matters
Basting with melted butter during baking. Regular basting keeps the surface from drying out, and the fat helps it brown and crisp evenly. Skipping it can leave the top pale and dry.
“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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