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Green Corn Cakes

Griddle cakes made from grated fresh corn, sweet milk, flour, eggs, butter, salt and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Green Corn Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine grated corn, sweet milk, flour, melted butter, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Add beaten eggs just before baking.

  3. If the mixture is not stiff, add more flour until it reaches a stiff consistency.

Cook

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto a hot, buttered griddle and flatten slightly.

  2. Bake 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Grated corn
Provides the main bulk, sweetness and tender body of the cakes.
All-purpose flour
Builds structure and sets the batter so the cakes hold their shape.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help the cakes rise and lighten.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a workable consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs just before baking. Beaten eggs and baking soda begin reacting as soon as they are mixed in, and the leavening gas is released over time. Adding the eggs late keeps the batter lively, so the cakes rise and brown well rather than turning flat and dense.

“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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