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Raised Batter Cakes

Griddle cakes made from a yeast-risen batter of Southern Indian meal, flour and milk, fried until golden brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Raised Batter Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the Southern Indian meal, flour, milk, yeast, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Cover and let the mixture rise overnight.

Cook

  1. In the morning, add the melted butter and baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  2. Heat a griddle and fry the batter 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Southern indian meal
Provides the cornmeal structure and the characteristic grainy texture of the pancakes.
Flour
Adds gluten-forming proteins that help the batter hold its shape when cooked.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that lightens the pancakes and adds tangy flavor.
Milk
Supplies liquid to hydrate the meal and flour and adds richness and browning through milk sugars.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter's acidity to release gas and promote additional rising and browning.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor and helps the pancakes brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Frying the batter until golden brown. Too low a heat leaves pancakes pale and gummy inside, while too high a heat scorches the outside before the center sets. Medium heat lets the batter cook through and brown evenly.

“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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