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Breakfast

Wheat Griddle-cakes

A batter of flour, eggs, milk, butter, and leavening cooked on a griddle to make wheat griddle-cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Wheat Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and add the sweet milk and melted butter.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, mixing until smooth and thick enough to pour.

Cook

  1. Preheat a well-greased griddle over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

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).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together as it sets.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and bind during cooking.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable liquid base.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and helps the surface brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Preheating the griddle. If the griddle is too cool, the pancakes spread, absorb grease and cook slowly without browning. Too hot, and the outside burns before the center sets. Medium-high heat with a well-greased surface gives even golden browning.

“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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