Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Griddle Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the sour milk, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a thin batter.
Cook
Heat a griddle and pour in the batter to form cakes.
Cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook until golden brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Provides liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the pancakes as its starches and proteins set during cooking.
The step that matters
Cook until bubbles form, then flip. Bubbles appearing on the surface show that gas has lifted the batter and the top has set enough to hold its shape. Flipping earlier can tear the cakes or leave them raw in the middle, while waiting too long can dry them out.
“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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