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Griddle Cakes

A light, fluffy batter made with flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, and butter or oil, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Griddle Cakes

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 ↓

Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Separate the eggs.

  3. Whip the yolks until thick and creamy.

  4. Add the milk to the yolks and mix well.

  5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.

  6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  7. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter just before cooking.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle over medium heat and grease it with butter or oil.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form on the surface.

  3. Flip the cakes and cook until golden brown on the other side.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and the whipped whites add lift to the batter.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid base and tenderness.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives the pancakes lift. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, leaving the pancakes flatter and denser.

“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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