Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Corn Meal Batter Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal and sour milk.
Stir in baking soda until it foams.
Add eggs and salt, mixing well.
If desired, add flour for improved texture.
Cook
Heat a griddle and grease it with oil or butter.
Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Forms the body of the cakes and gives them their grainy texture.
- Sour milk
- Provides moisture and acidity that works with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
The step that matters
Cooking on the griddle. The batter should foam from the baking soda before cooking, and the griddle must be hot and greased. If the heat is too low, the cakes spread and cook through slowly; if too high, they brown before the centre sets.
“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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