Corn Bread

Ingredients

• 1 cupful corn meal
• 1 teaspoonful salt
• 1 cupful flour
• 1J cupfuls sour milk
• 1/2 cupful sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoonful baking soda
• 2 tablespoonfuls fat

Method

1. 1

   Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly.

2. 2

   Beat the eggs; add the sour milk to the beaten eggs.

3. 3

   Sift the dry ingredients into the egg mixture.

4. 4

   Melt the fat.

5. 5

   Add it to the cornmeal mixture.

6. 6

   Mix quickly and thoroughly.

7. 7

   Turn at once into an oiled pan, and bake in a hot oven until sufficiently baked, usually 25 to 30 minutes.

As published

This recipe was extracted from A text-book of cooking (1915) by Carlotta Cherryholmes Greer, page 80. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Corn Bread Besides the air that is beaten into the eggs and into the combined ingredients of quick bread mixtures, a gas — carbon dioxide — is often introduced into such mixtures. To find how this gas may be formed, try the following : Experiment 69: Action of Baking Soda on Sour Milk. — Place a teaspooniul of sour milk in a test tube and add a pinch of baking soda. Do you notice any change in the ingredients ? Apply heat to the con- tents of the tube. What kind of material (solid, liquid, or gas) is indicated by the bubbling ? (See Experiment 62, p. 176.) What does this experiment teach with regard to the use of baking soda and sour milk, for lightening a mixture ? Experiment 70: Chemical Change. — Measure \ cupful of sour milk. 1 Dip the end of a piece of blue litmus paper in it. What change in color takes place in ■ the paper ? When blue litmus changes to pink, an acid is present. The sour milk therefore contains acid. Measure J teaspoonful of baking soda. Dissolve this in a little water. Test with pink litmus paper. When pink litmus paper changes to blue, an alka- line substance is present. Baking soda is therefore alkaline in reaction. Pour the milk into a saucepan, add about f of the dissolved soda. Stir and heat until effervescence (bubbling) has ceased. Test the mixture in the saucepan with blue litmus paper. If the blue litmus 1 The amount of acid in sour milk varies slightly. 196 THE COOKING OF FOODS paper changes color, carefully add a little more of the soda solution. Test with litmus again. If there is still a change in color, add soda solution until the litmus does not change. Then test with pink litmus. When neither pink nor blue litmus paper changes color a neutral sub- stance is present, i.e. a substance neither acid nor alkaline. When this occurs, the mixture in the pan is no longer acid in reac- tion. Neither sour milk nor baking soda exists in the pan. A chemical change has taken place. From the union of sour milk and soda, two entirely different materials are formed ; one is the neutral substance in the pan; the other is the carbon dioxide gas which has escaped. When an acid and an alkaline material are mixed, a chemical change always occurs. Chemical changes are constantly taking place when certain food mixtures are cooked and digested. Experiment 71 : Quantity of Baking Soda to Use with Sour Milk. — To the contents of the saucepan of Experiment 70, add \ tea- spoonful more of baking soda. Stir, heat, and test with pink litmus. What is the reaction — acid or alkaline? Has the last quantity of soda been neutralized as was the first quantity? Explain your answer. If more baking soda than is necessary to neutralize the acid of the sour milk is used, some unnentralized soda will remain in the mixture. This is undesirable, since soda has a " bitter taste." An excessive quantity of unneutralized soda also discolors the mixture. Experiments 70 and 71 indicate that the approximate proportion of baking soda to sour milk is: % teaspoonftU of baking soda to 1 cupful of sour milk. The following crude equations indicate the importance of* using the proper amount of baking soda to neutralize the acid materials : 1 cupful of sour milk + £ teaspoonful of baking soda yield carbon dioxide gas + neutral material. 1 cupful of sour milk + 1 teaspoonful of baking soda yield carbon dioxide gas + neutral material + unneutralized soda. LEAVENING AGENTS 197 CORN BREAD 1 capful corn meal 1 teaspoonful salt 1 cupful flour 1J cupfuls sour milk | cupful sugar 1 egg { teaspoonful baking soda 2 tablespoonfuls fat

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.