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Sour Milk Griddle Cakes

A griddle cake made with sour milk, sour cream, cornmeal, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sour Milk Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk and sour cream.

  2. Stir in baking soda, salt, cornmeal, flour, beaten egg, and melted butter.

  3. Mix thoroughly, then add more flour to achieve a thick cream-like consistency.

  4. Fold in baking powder.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Drop batter by tablespoon onto a well-greased griddle.

  2. Turn the cakes when bubbles form on the surface.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the pancakes rise.
Sour cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the batter a tender, rich texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to release carbon dioxide for lift and a light crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure as its proteins set during cooking, holding the pancakes together.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets on the griddle.
Baking powder
Supplies extra leavening so the pancakes rise further after mixing.

The step that matters

Turn the cakes when bubbles form on the surface. Bubbles mean the batter has set enough underneath to hold its shape. Turning earlier can tear the pancake and make it dense, while waiting too long can overcook and dry the centre.

“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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