Name: Cracked Wheat Griddles
Ingredients: 1 cup cooked cracked wheat; 3 eggs; 1 heaping teaspoon broken butter; ¼ teaspoon salt; 2 cups sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; flour (enough to make a griddle batter)

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Cracked Wheat Griddles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

Separate the grains of cracked wheat.
Add the sour milk to the wheat.
Cream the butter and beat the eggs, then stir them into the mixture.
Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of warm water and stir it into the batter.
Add flour until the mixture reaches a griddle batter consistency.

Cook

Bake on a greased hot 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.

Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,002 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: Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the griddle cakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas, helping the griddles rise and lighten.
Sour milk: Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and a tangy flavor.
Flour: Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the batter body and sets the griddles.
Cracked wheat: Adds chewy texture and a nutty, grainy flavor to the griddles.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in warm water before stirring it in. Baking soda needs moisture to dissolve evenly; dissolving it first spreads the reaction with the sour milk through the batter, avoiding pockets of bitter soda and uneven rising.

“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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Cracked Wheat Griddles