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Hominy Cakes

Hominy cakes are fried cakes made with warm hominy, butter, cream, eggs, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hominy Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine warm hominy, salt, butter, cream, and eggs.

  2. Add flour to thicken the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle over medium heat and pour the mixture onto it.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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

Hominy
Forms the body of the cake, giving it its corn flavour and tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help set the cakes as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it holds its shape on the griddle.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the cakes.

The step that matters

Frying on the griddle. Medium heat lets the centre set while the outside browns. Too hot and the surface burns before the inside cooks; too cool and the cakes stay pale and soft.

“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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