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Down South Waffles

A waffle batter made with eggs, water, buttermilk, flour, lard, and baking soda, baked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Down South Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light.

  2. Add water, buttermilk, flour, and lard. Stir lightly to avoid tough batter.

  3. Fold in baking soda and the beaten egg whites.

Cook the waffles

  1. Preheat the waffle irons and grease them with lard.

  2. Pour enough batter into the irons to fill them one-third full.

  3. If waffles stick, add a little more flour next time.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttermilktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites give it lift and a light, airy texture.
Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the waffles rise and brown.
Flour
Provides structure, which holds the waffles together as the batter sets.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and helps keep the waffles from sticking to the irons.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that makes the waffles rise.

The step that matters

Stir lightly to avoid tough batter. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes waffles tough and chewy instead of tender. Mixing only until combined keeps the texture light.

“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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