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 ↓
Griddle Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Melt the butter.
Stir the sweet milk into the flour mixture, beating hard and quickly.
Add the melted butter and mix well.
Cook and serve
Grease a hot griddle.
Drop the batter by spoonfuls onto the griddle.
Cook until brown on one side, then turn with a broad-bladed knife or cake turner to brown the other side.
Serve immediately with syrup or gravy.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and become light.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the flour to form the batter and adds moisture for a tender texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb, and helps the cakes brown.
The step that matters
Stir the milk in quickly. Beating the batter hard and fast is the step most likely to go wrong. Gluten forms as flour is worked, so overmixing can make the cakes tough. Stirring just until combined keeps them tender.
“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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