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Sour Milk Griddle Cakes

A quick griddle cake made with flour, sour milk, baking soda, salt, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Sour Milk Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix and sift the dry ingredients together.

  2. Add the sour milk and the well-beaten egg to the dry mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook on a hot, greased griddle until bubbles form on the surface and the edges are cooked.

  2. Turn the cakes and cook the other side until golden brown.

  3. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together as it sets.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas, lifting the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook on a hot, greased griddle until bubbles form on the surface. Heat sets the batter quickly while the baking soda is still releasing gas. If the griddle is too cool, the cakes spread and turn dense before they rise. Waiting for bubbles on the surface shows the centre is set enough to flip.

“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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