Name: Sour Milk Griddle-cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart sour milk; sifted flour (as needed); 2 large eggs, beaten; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 1 teaspoon baking soda; milk or cold water (for dissolving soda)

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

Combine sour milk and enough sifted flour in a bowl to make a thick batter.
Add beaten eggs, salt, melted butter, and baking soda dissolved in a little milk or cold water.

Cook the pancakes

Heat a well-greased griddle over medium-high heat.
Pour batter onto the griddle, forming cakes of similar size.
Cook until bubbles form on the surface, then flip and brown the other side.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce carbon dioxide, helping the pancakes rise.
Eggs: Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it cooks.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps browning on the griddle.
Flour: Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake as it cooks.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before adding it. Baking soda must be fully dissolved in liquid so it reacts evenly with the sour milk's acid; undissolved clumps leave bitter spots and uneven rising.

“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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Sour Milk Griddle-cakes