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Nice Griddle Cakes

A batter of sour cream, sour milk, eggs, flour, salt, and baking soda cooked on a greased griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Nice Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour cream, sour milk, salt, and eggs.

  2. Gradually add flour until you achieve a thin batter consistency.

  3. Stir in baking soda.

Cook

  1. Preheat a greased griddle over medium heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle.

  3. Cook until bubbles form.

  4. Flip and cook until golden.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 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. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Milk and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cakes set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and sour milk to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Sour cream
Adds richness and moisture, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Sour milk
Adds liquid and acidity that react with the baking soda for lift.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that form the cakes' structure.

The step that matters

Stir in baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour dairy and begins releasing gas right away, so the batter should be cooked soon after it is mixed to keep the lift.

“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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