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Dessert

Plain Indian Cakes

Plain Indian cakes are a simple batter of Indian meal, salt, water, buttermilk, cream or butter, and baking soda baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and cream work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 674 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Plain Indian Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the Indian meal with salt.

  3. Gradually add scalding water while stirring until combined.

Mix and bake

  1. In another bowl, mix buttermilk or sour milk with cream or butter.

  2. Rub the cream or butter into the meal mixture.

  3. Add baking soda and mix well.

  4. Pour the batter onto a greased baking sheet and bake until golden.

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. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Forms the main structure of the cakes as it sets with heat.
Buttermilk or sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk or sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cream or butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Add baking soda and mix well. Baking soda needs an acid, such as buttermilk or sour milk, to release gas for lift. Mixing it evenly distributes the leavening so the cakes rise uniformly rather than in pockets.

“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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