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Corn Griddle Cakes

A batter of milk, cornmeal, flour, sugar, and baking powder is cooked on a griddle to make corn griddle cakes.

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 Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat together the milk, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add the cornmeal, flour, and baking powder, then mix in the well-beaten egg.

  3. Pour the batter onto a hot griddle from a small pitcher to keep the cakes uniform in shape.

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. Sugar + flourtop 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

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and gritty, sturdy texture of the pancakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps hold the pancakes together as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the pancakes rise and turn light and tender.
Flour
Adds structure alongside the cornmeal so the pancakes hold their shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancakes brown on the griddle.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and gives the batter its pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Pouring the batter onto a hot griddle. A hot griddle sets the outside of each cake quickly, so it holds its shape and browns evenly. Pouring from a small pitcher gives controlled, uniform portions that cook at the same rate.

“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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