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Bannock or Griddle-Cake

A simple flatbread made from flour, leavening, butter, and milk or water, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Bannock or Griddle-Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

  2. Cut in butter or lard until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Stir in milk or water until a soft dough forms.

  4. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead gently for a minute.

Shape and cook

  1. Roll out to about ½ inch thick and cut into rounds.

  2. Cook on a hot griddle or skillet until golden brown on both sides.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with liquid and kneaded.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it reacts with moisture and heat, lifting the bannock so it rises.
Butter or lard
Cut into the flour to create a tender, crumbly texture by coating flour particles with fat.
Milk or water
Hydrates the flour to form a soft dough and gives moisture to the finished bread.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the surface brown in the hot pan.

The step that matters

Knead gently for only a minute. Overworking wheat flour dough develops gluten, which makes bannock tough and dense instead of tender. A brief, gentle knead is enough to bring the dough together.

“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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