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Buttermilk Griddle Cakes

A quick batter of buttermilk, flour, baking soda, salt, and egg cooked on a greased griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg, then add the buttermilk and salt and mix well.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in 2 tablespoons of boiling water and stir it into the mixture.

  3. Gradually add flour while stirring until the batter is thin enough to pour smoothly from a spoon.

Cook

  1. Beat the batter well and bake quickly on a hot greased griddle.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Buttermilk
Adds acidity and moisture, giving the cakes a tender crumb and tang.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acidity to produce carbon dioxide, which makes the cakes rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as the cakes set.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that set the cakes' structure as they cook.

The step that matters

Bake quickly on a hot, greased griddle. Baking soda releases gas as soon as it meets the acidic buttermilk, so the batter should be cooked promptly. A hot surface sets the outside fast, trapping the gas so the cakes rise and brown evenly instead of spreading or turning flat.

“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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