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Sour Milk Griddle-cakes

A batter of sour milk, flour, eggs, and baking soda is cooked on a greased griddle to make pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Sour Milk Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine sour milk and enough sifted flour to create a thick batter that can run from the dish.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, salt, melted butter, and baking soda dissolved in a little milk or cold water.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Heat a well-greased griddle over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour spoonfuls of batter onto the griddle, cooking until bubbles form on the surface.

  3. Flip the cakes and cook until browned on the other side.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce carbon dioxide, making the pancakes rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold its shape while cooking.
Sifted flour
Provides the starch and gluten that thicken the batter and give the pancakes their body.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the surface brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before adding it. Baking soda must be fully dissolved in liquid so it spreads evenly through the batter. Undissolved clumps leave bitter spots and uneven rising, while the acid in the sour milk does the work of releasing gas.

“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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