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Corn-meal Griddle Cakes

A batter of sour or buttermilk, eggs, molasses, flour, cornmeal, lard, baking soda, and salt is cooked on a hot griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Corn-meal Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the eggs, buttermilk, and molasses.

  2. Add the flour and enough cornmeal to achieve a batter thickness of rich cream.

  3. Stir in the melted lard and the baking soda dissolved in a few drops of boiling water. Beat the mixture vigorously.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle until very hot and grease it with a piece of fat salt pork.

  2. Test a small amount of batter; it should run easily and be thin enough to turn with a cake turner.

  3. If the batter is too thick, add a little more buttermilk and a pinch of baking soda; if too thin, add more cornmeal.

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. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Sour or buttermilk
Provides liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cakes set on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour buttermilk to produce gas, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and a darker color to the cakes.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Flour
Adds gluten-forming structure that holds the cakes together alongside the cornmeal.

The step that matters

Testing and adjusting the batter thickness. Cornmeal absorbs liquid and thickens the batter as it rests, and too thick a batter yields dense cakes. Checking that it runs easily and adjusting with buttermilk and baking soda or cornmeal keeps the texture even.

“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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