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Dessert

Flour Griddle Cakes

A batter of sour milk, shortening, eggs, baking soda, and flour cooked on a hot griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Flour Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine sour milk or buttermilk, shortening, salt, eggs, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add flour until a soft batter is achieved.

  3. Mix the batter at night.

  4. Add baking soda in the morning.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot griddle as soon as the batter is ready.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 or buttermilk
Provides liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the milk to release gas, lifting the batter for a light texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping hold the cakes together while they cook.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the cakes and gives a softer crumb.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once it is set by heat.

The step that matters

Cook on a hot griddle as soon as the batter is ready. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk or buttermilk right away, releasing carbon dioxide that creates bubbles. If the batter stands too long, much of that gas escapes, so the cakes cook up flatter and less light.

“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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