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Corn Meal Griddle-cakes

A cornmeal griddle cake made with cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, and cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Corn Meal Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald the cornmeal in a pot.

  2. Mix the cornmeal with wheat flour and salt.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and enough sour milk to achieve the right consistency.

  4. Beat the mixture until very light.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the mixture.

  6. If using sweet milk, substitute the baking soda with 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Cook

  1. Cook on a griddle over medium heat until golden brown.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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 + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cornmeal
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their grainy texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of sour milk to produce gas, lightening the batter.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the cakes more cohesion and softness.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until very light. Beating incorporates air that expands during cooking and helps the cakes rise and stay tender. Under-beating leaves dense cakes, while the baking soda must be mixed in promptly so its gas is released into the batter.

“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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