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Indian Griddle- Cakes

A batter of yellow Indian meal, flour, salt, butter, milk, and eggs is cooked on a griddle to make golden 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 ↓

Indian Griddle- Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the yellow Indian meal, flour, and salt.

  2. Melt the butter in the milk over medium heat.

  3. Gradually stir in the meal until combined.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

  5. Beat the eggs until frothy and mix them into the batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle and lightly grease it with butter or fat from salt pork.

  2. Fry the cakes quickly until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot with butter and honey or molasses.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Yellow indian meal
Forms the body of the cakes, setting into a firm, grainy texture when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness, helping the cakes hold together on the griddle.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal into a batter and adds moisture and tenderness.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the batter and helps grease the griddle for browning.
Flour
Adds structure to the batter, helping the cakes hold their shape.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Cornmeal batter thickened with hot milk would scramble or cook the beaten eggs unevenly if they were added while it is still hot. Cooling it first lets the eggs mix in smoothly.

“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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