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Hominy Cakes

A batter of sweet milk, boiled hominy, eggs, butter, and flour cooked on a griddle.

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

Hominy Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sweet milk, boiled hominy, and salt.

  2. Beat in the eggs and melted butter.

  3. Gradually add flour until the batter is thin.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot griddle 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the cakes as they set.
Flour
Thickens the batter so the cakes hold together while cooking.
Hominy
Provides the bulk and corn texture of the cakes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that loosens the batter and adds softness.

The step that matters

Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown on both sides. A hot surface sets the outside quickly and browns it through Maillard reaction, while a cool pan lets the batter spread and steam, leaving the cakes pale and soggy.

“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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