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Indian Meal Griddle Cakes

Griddle cakes made with Indian meal, wheat flour, baking soda, eggs, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Indian Meal Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald the Indian meal with boiling water until it reaches the thickness of hasty pudding.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda in hot water.

  3. Add the dissolved baking soda, wheat flour, beaten eggs, and salt to the Indian meal.

  4. Thin the mixture with sweet milk to achieve the desired consistency.

Cook

  1. Cook on a 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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 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

Indian meal
Forms the main body of the batter and gives the cakes their corn-based structure.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas, helping the cakes rise and lighten.
Wheat flour
Adds starch that helps hold the cakes together and supports browning.
Sweet milk
Thins the batter to the desired consistency and adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Cook on a griddle until golden brown on both sides. Cooking over steady heat sets the proteins and starches so the cakes hold together, and browning adds flavor. Too little heat leaves them pale and gummy inside; too much burns the outside before the center sets.

“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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