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Breakfast Griddle Cakes

A batter of sour milk, baking powder, egg, butter, salt, and flour cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Breakfast Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Gradually add baking powder to the sour milk while stirring until frothy.

  2. Add the beaten egg, melted butter, and salt.

  3. Mix in enough flour to achieve a thick batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook one cake on a griddle to test.

  2. Serve hot.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Acidity reacts with the baking powder to create bubbles that lighten the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as the cakes set.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished cakes.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that give the cakes their body and structure.

The step that matters

Cook one cake on a griddle to test. Batter that is too thick or a griddle that is too hot or too cool gives uneven results. A test cake shows whether the batter spreads properly and browns evenly before you cook the rest.

“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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