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Dessert

Hoe Cake

A cornmeal cake cooked on a griddle, served with butter and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hoe Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the cornmeal, salt, and maple sugar or syrup.

  2. Pour enough scalded milk or boiling water to make a thick mixture.

Cook the cakes

  1. Grease a hot griddle with fat salt pork.

  2. Drop the mixture from a large spoon and pat to ½ inch thickness.

  3. Cook slowly until well browned, then place a small bit of butter on top of each cake.

  4. Turn the cakes and brown the top side.

  5. Add more fat to the griddle if necessary.

  6. Serve thoroughly cooked with butter and 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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

White cornmeal
Forms the main structure of the cake, setting as it cooks and gives it a grainy texture.
Scalded milk or boiling water
Hydrates the cornmeal so it forms a thick batter that holds its shape.
Maple sugar or syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown well on the griddle.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until well browned. Cornmeal cakes need steady, moderate heat so the centre cooks through before the outside burns. Thorough cooking also sets the starch and develops the browned flavour.

“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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