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Flannel Cakes

Yeast-leavened griddle cakes made from Indian meal, sweet milk, eggs and flour, risen overnight or for three hours before frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Make hot a pint of sweet milk in which put two ounces of butter and let it melt.

  2. Add a pint of cold milk, the well beaten yolks of four eggs, a teaspoon of salt, two tablespoons of potato yeast, and sufficient flour to make a stiff batter.

  3. Make the batter just stiff enough.

  4. Set the batter in a warm place to rise and let it stand three hours or over night.

  5. Do not add flour in the morning unless you can let it rise again.

Bake and serve

  1. Before baking, add the beaten whites of the eggs.

  2. Fry as any other griddle cakes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

996Calories
32 gProtein
32 gFat
145 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Women of the First Congregational Church (Marysville, Ohio). 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. See the original page.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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
Yolks add richness and whites, beaten and folded in before frying, lighten the batter.
Potato yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes light during the standing time.
Butter
Melted into the milk, it adds richness and tenderness to the cakes.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together once it is stiff enough.
Indian meal
Cornmeal gives the cakes their corn flavour and a slightly grainy texture.

The step that matters

Add the flour carefully in the morning. Adding more flour after the batter has risen makes it too stiff to rise again, so the cakes turn out dense rather than light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, milk, flour, egg. 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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