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Hominy Griddle-cakes

Hominy griddle-cakes are a batter of milk, butter, eggs, hominy, flour, and salt, cooked on a hot griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Hominy Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine warm milk and melted butter.

  2. Rub the hominy through a colander into the milk mixture.

  3. Add salt, beaten egg yolks, and flour until well combined.

  4. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites just before baking.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a griddle over high heat and grease it.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle to cover the bottom.

  3. Cook until golden brown, then flip and cook the other side.

  4. Serve warm, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon or spread with jelly.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the batter and add richness, while whipped whites lighten it for a tender texture.
Egg whites
Stiffly beaten whites trap air, helping the griddle-cakes rise and stay light.
Hominy
Rubbed-through hominy adds body and a soft, slightly grainy texture to the batter.
Flour
Flour provides structure so the batter holds together on the griddle.
Butter
Melted butter adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Milk
Warm milk hydrates the flour and hominy, forming a pourable batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently just before cooking. Whipped egg whites hold air bubbles that give lift. Overmixing or letting the batter stand deflates them, leaving the cakes flatter and denser.

“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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