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Hominy Cakes

Hominy cakes are griddle cakes made with boiled hominy, flour, salt, buttermilk, baking soda, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk 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 ↓

Hominy Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix cold boiled hominy and white flour until smooth.

  2. Add salt and thin with buttermilk mixed with baking soda.

  3. When the batter is the right consistency for griddle cakes, stir in melted butter.

Cook

  1. Bake on a hot griddle until golden brown.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Hominy
Provides the bulk and corn flavour that give the cakes their body.
White flour
Adds starch that binds the batter and helps it hold its shape on the griddle.
Buttermilk
Thins the batter and adds tang that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acidity to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Thinning the batter to the right consistency. Batter that is too thick gives dense cakes, while batter that is too thin spreads and cooks unevenly. Adding the buttermilk and baking soda gradually lets you judge the texture before the butter goes in.

“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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