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Dessert

Berry Griddle Cakes

Berry Griddle Cakes are small cakes made with scalded Indian meal, flour, milk, and berries, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Berry Griddle Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix scalded Indian meal, egg, sugar, flour, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt in a bowl until well combined.

  2. Gently fold in the berries.

Cook the cakes

  1. Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat and grease lightly.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes and cook until bubbles form on the surface.

  3. Flip and cook until golden brown on both sides.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and milk 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

Eggs
Binds the batter and adds structure to the cakes as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that works with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes once heated.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter reach a pourable consistency.
Berries
Add moisture, sweetness and colour to the cakes.

The step that matters

Flip and cook until golden brown on both sides. Flip only after bubbles form and the underside is set, so the cakes hold together. Cooking until golden brown on both sides gives browning and flavour, while heat that is too high can scorch the outside before the centre sets.

“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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