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Dessert

Newport Waffles

A batter of Indian meal, butter, salt, eggs, flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and milk baked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Newport Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mush

  1. Prepare 1 pint of Indian meal into mush as usual.

  2. While hot, mix in butter and salt.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the whites and yolks of 4 eggs separately until very light.

  2. Combine the eggs with the cooled mush, then gradually mix in 1 quart of flour.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk or sour cream, then add to the mixture.

  4. Adjust the batter to a thin consistency with sweet milk.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat waffle irons for 1 hour.

  2. Butter the irons thoroughly.

  3. Fill the irons halfway with batter and bake quickly over a brisk fire.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Whipped separately, they lighten the batter and add structure as the waffles set.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the waffle together once baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk or sour cream to produce gas that helps the waffles rise.
Buttermilk or sour cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness and tang.
Indian meal
Cornmeal mush gives the waffles their corn flavor and a slightly grainy texture.

The step that matters

Preheat waffle irons for 1 hour. Very hot, well-buttered irons sear the batter's outside quickly, so it browns and releases cleanly instead of sticking or steaming.

“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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