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Cornmeal Cakes

A fried batter made from cornmeal, milk, flour, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cornmeal Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, and cooked rice.

  2. Add the milk and the beaten egg yolks, mixing well.

  3. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fat in a skillet and drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot fat.

  2. Fry 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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rice + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 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

Cornmeal
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their grainy texture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whites, whipped stiff and folded in, lighten it.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and stay tender.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and flour into a pourable batter and adds moisture.
Flour
Adds structure and helps the cakes hold their shape while frying.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the cakes light. Stirring them vigorously knocks that air out, so folding gently keeps the batter airy and the cakes from turning 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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