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Dessert

Corn Meal Griddle-cakes

A simple cornmeal griddle cake made with milk, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Meal Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Pour the hot milk over the corn meal and stir thoroughly.

  2. Cook for two minutes.

  3. Sift the remaining dry ingredients.

  4. When the meal has cooled, mix all ingredients together and add the well-beaten egg.

Cook

  1. Bake 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 + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Corn meal
Provides the main body and grainy texture of the cakes.
Hot milk
Hydrates the corn meal and softens its starch so the batter holds together.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.
Flour
Adds gluten-forming structure that supports the cakes' shape.

The step that matters

Pour the hot milk over the corn meal and stir thoroughly. Hot liquid gelatinizes the starch in the corn meal, which thickens the mixture and helps it hold together. Thorough stirring prevents dry pockets and lumps, so the batter cooks and rises evenly.

“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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