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Dessert

Persimmon Gridelecakes

A griddlecake made with persimmon pulp, egg, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Persimmon and flour share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 63 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Persimmon Gridelecakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine persimmon pulp, egg, flour, baking powder, and baking soda.

  2. Add milk gradually until the mixture forms a thin batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour batter onto a hot griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Persimmon + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together63 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Persimmon + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Persimmon pulp
Adds sweetness, moisture and natural flavor to the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and gives the griddlecakes structure as they set.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the griddlecakes together.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the griddlecakes rise and become light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic persimmon pulp to add lift and promote browning.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Batter thickness controls how the griddlecakes spread and cook. Adding milk a little at a time lets you reach a thin, pourable batter without overmixing, which can make cakes tough. Stop once the batter pours easily.

Swap the persimmon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Persimmonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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