Name: Stale-bread Griddle Cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart of milk, scalding hot; 2 eggs; 1 pint of stale bread crumbs; 1 teaspoon of salt; 1 tablespoon of melted butter; 3 ounces of flour (for thin batter); 2 teaspoons of baking powder (or ½ teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar); Fat for greasing the griddle

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stale-bread Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

1 quart of milk, scalding hot
2 eggs
1 pint of stale bread crumbs
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of melted butter
3 ounces of flour (for thin batter)
2 teaspoons of baking powder (or ½ teaspoon of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar)
Fat for greasing the griddle

Directions

Prepare the batter

Soak the bread crumbs in the hot milk for 1 hour, then beat until smooth.
Separate the eggs and beat the whites and yolks until very light.
Add the egg yolks to the bread mixture, followed by the flour, melted butter, and salt. Mix well.
Add the baking powder and the beaten egg whites, then mix gently.

Bake

Grease a hot griddle with fat and bake the batter quickly 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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Stale bread crumbs: Soaked in hot milk, they soften and thicken the batter, giving the cakes body and moisture.
Eggs: Yolks enrich the batter and beaten whites add lightness and help the cakes rise.
Flour: Adds structure so the batter holds together as it cooks on the griddle.
Baking powder: Releases gas when heated, leavening the batter so the cakes puff and stay light.
Melted butter: Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown golden on the griddle.

The step that matters

Bake the batter quickly on a hot, greased griddle. A hot surface sets the outside quickly and traps the gas from the baking powder, so the cakes rise and brown before spreading or going dense. A cool griddle lets the batter spread and turn pale and heavy.

“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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Stale-bread Griddle Cakes