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Dessert

Corn Meal Waffles

A batter of corn meal, eggs, lard or butter, and flour baked over a very hot fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Meal Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald the corn meal.

  2. While hot, add lard or butter.

  3. Add the eggs and baking soda.

  4. Mix in enough flour to create a batter that is not too stiff.

Bake

  1. Bake over a very hot fire.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Corn meal
Forms the base of the batter and gives the waffles their corn flavour and grainy texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the waffles.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps the waffles brown.
Flour
Adds body so the mixture holds together as a pourable batter.

The step that matters

Bake over a very hot fire. Waffles need a very hot surface so the batter sets quickly and browns before it dries out. A cooler iron or fire lets the batter spread and turn pale and soft.

“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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