Name: Buttermilk Griddle Cakes
Ingredients: 1 cup buttermilk; ½ teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; Sufficient flour to make a thin batter

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 ↓

Buttermilk Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

1 cup buttermilk
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
Sufficient flour to make a thin batter

Directions

Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of boiling water.
Combine the buttermilk, dissolved baking soda, salt, and enough flour to create a thin batter.
Mix until smooth and let rest for a few minutes before cooking.

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.

Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

Mutton Broth292 recipes

Yorkshire Pudding264 recipes

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Buttermilk Griddle Cakes