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Dessert

Snow Griddle Cakes

A griddle cake made with flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, milk, heavy cream, egg, and fresh dry snow.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Snow Griddle Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Sift the cream of tartar and baking soda with the flour.

  2. Add the salt, then gradually stir in the milk and cream.

  3. Beat the egg well and add it to the mixture.

  4. Finally, stir in the fresh dry snow.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle on the stove until very hot and grease it with lard.

  2. Fry the batter immediately on the griddle.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with the baking soda to help the pancakes rise.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the liquid base of the batter.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the pancakes set as they cook.
Fresh dry snow
Adds cold, airy volume that lightens the batter as it is stirred in last.

The step that matters

Fry the batter immediately on the griddle. Snow melts and the leavening reaction starts as soon as the batter is mixed. Waiting lets the gas escape and the pancakes turn out flat and dense, so the batter should go onto a very hot griddle right away.

“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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