Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Griddle Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sift together the flour and salt in a bowl.
In another bowl, stir the baking soda into the sour milk until it foams.
Mix and bake
Quickly mix the foaming sour milk with the flour mixture.
Bake the cakes immediately on a hot griddle.
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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 batter together as the cakes set.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and acidity, and reacts with the baking soda to produce foam.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
The step that matters
Quickly mix the foaming sour milk with the flour mixture. Baking soda reacts with the sour milk's acid and releases gas right away, so the batter loses its lift if it sits. Mixing quickly and baking immediately keeps the rise in the cakes.
“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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