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Dessert

Griddle Cakes, Sour Milk

A thin batter griddle cake made with sour milk, baking soda, flour, eggs, salt, and optional cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Griddle Cakes, Sour Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve baking soda in a little water and add to the buttermilk or sour milk.

  2. Stir in enough flour to create a thin batter.

  3. Add salt and beaten eggs, mixing well.

  4. If desired, mix in a little cornmeal with the flour.

Bake

  1. Just before baking, stir in a little hot shortening.

  2. Bake the cakes without turning more than once.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and egg 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 or sour milk
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas, helping the cakes rise.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter as it sets during baking.
Eggs
Add structure and richness and help bind the batter.

The step that matters

Bake the cakes without turning more than once. Turning too often knocks out the gas bubbles that formed as the batter heated, so the cakes rise less and become dense. Letting each side set before turning keeps them light.

“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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