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Newport Waffles

A batter waffle made with Indian meal, butter, salt, eggs, flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and sweet milk.

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

Prepare the mush

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

  2. While hot, stir in a small lump of butter and 2 teaspoons of coarse sea 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 and gradually mix in 1 quart of all-purpose flour.

  3. Dissolve ½ teaspoon of baking soda in ½ pint of buttermilk or sour cream and add to the mixture.

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

Bake

  1. Preheat waffle irons for 1 hour before baking.

  2. Butter the irons thoroughly and fill them half full with batter.

  3. 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, the whites and yolks add lift and a light, airy structure to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Gluten forms the batter's structure, giving the waffles body and holding them together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk or sour cream to release gas, helping the waffles rise.
Buttermilk or sour cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang to the batter.
Indian meal
Cornmeal gives the waffles a grainy texture and corn flavor.

The step that matters

Preheat the waffle irons for 1 hour before baking. A fully hot iron sears the batter on contact, setting the outside quickly so the waffle releases cleanly and browns evenly 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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