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Dessert

Newport Breakfast-cakes

A batter of dough, eggs, butter, sugar, baking soda, and milk, cooked on a griddle into light brown cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Newport Breakfast-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Take 1 quart of dough.

  2. Separate the yolks and whites of 3 eggs and whip both to a light froth.

  3. Mix the whipped yolks into the dough.

  4. Gradually add 2 tablespoons of melted butter, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.

  5. Add enough warm milk to achieve a batter consistency similar to buckwheat cakes.

  6. Beat the mixture well and let it rise until breakfast time.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle and grease it.

  2. Pour small rounds of batter onto the griddle and cook until light 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Whipped yolks and whites add lightness and help the cakes rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough's acidity to release gas, helping the batter rise.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Warm milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Pour small rounds onto a greased griddle and cook until light brown. Batter cooked too hot browns on the outside while the centre stays raw, and cooking too cool leaves the cakes pale and gummy. Medium heat and a greased surface let the cakes set through and brown evenly.

“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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