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Preserve

Cornmeal Pancakes

A batter of cornmeal, water, salt, sugar, baking powder, butter, and egg cooked into pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cornmeal Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix cornmeal, water, salt, sugar, and baking powder.

  2. Stir in melted butter and beaten egg until smooth.

Cook

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and grease lightly.

  2. Pour batter onto skillet to form pancakes.

  3. Cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and gritty, corn-flavoured structure of the pancakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pancakes as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pancakes rise and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook until bubbles form, then flip. Bubbles on the surface show the centre has set enough to hold its shape when flipped. Flipping too early can tear the pancake, and waiting too long can dry it out or overbrown the surface.

“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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