Skip to main content
Breakfast

Tomato Griddle Cakes

Griddle cakes made with ripe tomatoes, flour, molasses, ginger, buttermilk or sour milk, baking soda and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Tomato Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Slice the ripe tomatoes and mix them into a batter.

  2. In a bowl, combine flour, salt, ginger, molasses, and buttermilk.

  3. Add baking soda and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then fold them into the batter.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle and pour batter to form cakes.

  2. 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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cakes hold together and set as they cook.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the batter and helps the cakes rise.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and gives a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep color that promotes browning on the griddle.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the batter into cakes.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. The griddle must be hot enough to brown the surface before the inside dries out. Sugars in the molasses brown quickly, so heat that is too high can scorch the outside while the center stays raw. Flip only when bubbles form and the edges look set.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, ginger, molasses, buttermilk, egg):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, ginger, molasses, buttermilk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes