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Wheat Cakes

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Wheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until you achieve a thin batter consistency.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot griddle or skillet until golden brown.

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
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, causing the cakes to rise.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes, setting as the batter cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking on a hot griddle or skillet. If the surface is not hot enough, the cakes spread and absorb fat slowly, and the batter may not set before the leavening gas escapes. A hot surface sets the outside quickly and gives an even golden brown colour.

“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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