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Indian Griddle Cakes

A batter of cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs, and milk cooked on a griddle to make pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Indian Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift and mix together the cornmeal, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and milk, mixing until you have a smooth batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle over high heat.

  2. Pour batter to form cakes.

  3. Cook until browned on both sides.

  4. Serve with syrup.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the cakes as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and grainy texture of the cakes.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure and helps the cakes hold their shape while cooking.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Cook until browned on both sides. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction between sugars and proteins at the surface, giving flavor and color. Cooking too hot or too briefly can scorch the outside or leave the centre raw, so flip when the underside is golden and the edges look set.

“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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