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Graham Griddle Cakes

A simple griddle cake made with cornmeal, wheat flour, egg, milk, water, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Graham Griddle Cakes

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 ↓

Graham Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, wheat flour, sugar, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg and then add the milk and water.

  3. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and stir until smooth.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle over medium heat and lightly grease it.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, gritty body that gives the cakes their characteristic texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps hold the cakes together as they cook.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the cakes hold their shape when flipped.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the batter brown evenly on the griddle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes take on a golden brown color.

The step that matters

Flipping the cakes at the bubble stage. Flip once bubbles form and the surface looks set; flipping too early tears the cakes, while waiting too long dries them out and can over-brown the underside.

“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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