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Corn Griddle Cakes

A batter of cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, butter, sugar, baking powder, and salt cooked on a griddle to make cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine cornmeal, wheat flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs in another bowl and mix in the melted butter.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle over medium heat and lightly grease it.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes, cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook until golden brown.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and the characteristic grainy corn texture of the cakes.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten structure that holds the cakes together while they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.
Sugar or syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown to a golden colour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Stir the batter until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat flour, which makes griddle cakes tough and dense. Stop once no dry streaks remain and let small lumps stay.

“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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