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Dessert

Corn Meal Crumpets

A quick batter of sour milk, flour, egg, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cornmeal, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Corn Meal Crumpets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk or buttermilk, flour, beaten egg, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and mix it into the batter.

  3. Add enough cornmeal to achieve the right batter consistency.

  4. Test a spoonful on a griddle; adjust with more flour if too thin or more milk if too thick.

Serve

  1. Serve hot immediately after baking, and do not stack them.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Sour milk or buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that makes the crumpets rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the milk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumpets.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds its shape while cooking.
Cornmeal
Gives the crumpets their grainy texture and corn flavour, and sets the batter's body.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and mixing it in. Baking soda needs acid to react and release gas; if it is not fully dissolved and evenly mixed, pockets of unreacted soda can leave bitter spots 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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