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Dessert

Cornmem, Griddle Cakes

A batter of sweet milk, cornmeal, butter, eggs, and baking powder baked in a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cornmem, Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Heat 2 cups of sweet milk until boiling.

  2. Stir the hot milk into 1 cup of sifted meal.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of fresh butter and 1 teaspoon of salt.

  4. Beat the yolks of 4 eggs with 1 tablespoon of cold milk.

  5. Stir the yolk mixture into the batter when it is not scalding hot.

  6. Mix in 1 heaped tablespoon of flour and 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

Whip, fold and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the stiff egg whites into the batter.

  3. Place the pan of cakes in a warm water bath while baking to make them light.

  4. Bake immediately after adding the egg whites.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Meal
Forms the body of the cakes and gives them their cornmeal flavor and texture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites trap air that lifts the cakes.
Flour
Adds structure so the cakes hold together when cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise and become lighter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, tenderness and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the whipped egg whites hold their stiff structure.

The step that matters

Gently fold the stiff egg whites into the batter. Whipped whites hold air bubbles that make the cakes light. Stirring vigorously deflates them, so the cakes come out dense. Baking soon after folding keeps the trapped air from escaping.

“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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