Skip to main content
Dessert

Cornmeal Flapjacks

A batter of buttermilk, eggs, flour, cornmeal, molasses, lard, baking soda, and salt cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cornmeal Flapjacks

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine buttermilk and beaten eggs.

  2. Add salt, baking soda, molasses, and melted lard; mix well.

  3. Stir in flour and enough cornmeal to achieve a batter slightly thicker than pancake batter.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle.

  2. Pour batter to form flapjacks.

  3. Cook 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.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Buttermilk + eggtop 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

Buttermilk
Adds acidity that reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and gives a tangy flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the pancakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to produce gas, helping the pancakes rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and color to the pancakes.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.
Flour
Provides gluten and starch that give the batter body and structure alongside the cornmeal.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and cornmeal to a thick batter. Cornmeal absorbs liquid slowly and flour develops gluten when mixed, so the batter should be thicker than pancake batter. Thin batter spreads and cooks flat, while the right consistency holds its shape on the griddle.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesButtermilk PieButtermilk Pie12 recipesMolasses Sponge CakeMolasses Sponge Cake9 recipes