Name: Foam Griddle Cakes
Ingredients: ½ pint sour milk; pinch of salt; 1 egg yolk; 1 piece butter (size of a hickory nut); flour (enough to make a batter); ½ teaspoon baking soda; 1 tablespoon boiling water; 1 egg white (beaten to stiff froth)

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Foam Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Combine sour milk, salt, egg yolk, and butter in a bowl and mix well.
Gradually add flour until a batter forms.
Beat for 5 minutes.
Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and add to the batter.
Gently fold in the beaten egg white.

Cook

Preheat a griddle and grease it with a cloth wrapped around beef suet.
Pour batter onto the hot griddle and cook 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the cakes rise.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it cooks.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk's acid to release carbon dioxide, lightening the batter.
Egg white: Beaten to stiff froth, it traps air that adds lightness to the cakes.
Egg yolk: Adds richness and helps bind the batter.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavour.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg white gently. Beaten egg white holds air bubbles that give lightness. Vigorous stirring deflates them, so the cakes come out denser and flatter.

“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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Foam Griddle Cakes