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Corn Griddle Cakes

A simple griddle cake made from sour milk, corn meal, wheat flour, egg, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk, corn meal, wheat flour, beaten egg, baking soda, and salt, and mix until well combined.

  2. Heat a griddle over medium heat and lightly grease it.

Cook the cakes

  1. Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes.

  2. Cook until bubbles form on the surface, 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. Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Corn meal
Provides the main body and the characteristic grainy texture of the cakes.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the cakes hold together when flipped.
Beaten egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to leaven the batter for a lighter crumb.

The step that matters

Flipping the cakes at the right moment. Flip once bubbles form on the surface and the bottom is set. Flipping too early tears the cakes, while waiting too long can leave them dry or overbrowned.

“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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