Name: Sour Milk Griddlecakes
Ingredients: 1 egg; 2 cups sour milk (or add a little sweet milk if too sour); 2 teaspoons baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; flour (enough to make a good batter)

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 ↓

Sour Milk Griddlecakes

Ingredients

1 egg
2 cups sour milk (or add a little sweet milk if too sour)
2 teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
flour (enough to make a good batter)

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, beat the egg.
Add the sour milk and mix well. If the milk is too sour, add a little sweet milk.
Stir in the baking soda and salt.
Gradually add flour until you achieve a good batter consistency.

Cook

Heat a griddle and fry the batter until golden brown on both sides.

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.

Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 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

Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
Sour milk: Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda for lift.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.
Flour: Forms the structure of the batter and sets as the cakes cook.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk right away, releasing gas. Stirring it in and cooking promptly keeps that lift in the batter, so the griddlecakes rise rather than turning flat and dense.

“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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Sour Milk Griddlecakes