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Corn-meal Waffles

A waffle made with cornmeal, flour, sour milk, sour cream, sugar, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Corn-meal Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar, salt, cornmeal, and flour.

  2. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the cold water, then stir it into the sour cream and sour milk.

  4. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and add the beaten eggs, stirring well.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake in a waffle iron until golden brown.

  2. If sour cream is unavailable, use 2½ cups of sour milk and 1 tablespoon of melted butter.

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. Cream + sugartop 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides gluten structure that holds the waffle together.
Cornmeal
Adds coarse texture and a toasty corn flavor to the waffle.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda so the batter rises and stays tender.
Sour cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving a richer, softer crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the iron.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the liquid. Baking soda needs acid to react and lift the batter. Dissolving it fully in the cold water before mixing spreads it evenly, so the waffles rise uniformly instead of having dense or bitter spots.

“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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