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Green Corn Cakes

A savory cake made from grated corn, butter, flour, eggs, salt, and pepper, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,324 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Green Corn Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Preheat your griddle or skillet over medium heat.

  2. In a bowl, combine grated corn, melted butter, flour, eggs, salt, and pepper, and mix until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides and serve immediately.

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. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Flour + eggtop 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

Grated corn
Provides most of the bulk, moisture and natural sweetness of the cakes.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown.
Flour
Absorbs liquid and gives the batter enough structure to hold its shape.
Eggs
Bind the batter together and help the cakes set as they cook.

The step that matters

Cooking on medium heat until golden on both sides. The sugars in corn and the milk solids in butter brown quickly. If the heat is too high, the surface scorches before the centre of each cake has set, so keep the heat steady at medium and cook until the cakes are golden on both sides.

“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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