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Corn Griddle Cakes

A batter of eggs, salt, sour milk, cornmeal, flour, and baking soda cooked on a griddle into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Corn Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the salt and sour milk.

  2. Add the cornmeal and flour, then stir in the baking soda mixture.

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. 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. Egg + milktop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Sour milk
Supplies liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Cornmeal
Gives the cakes their grainy texture and corn flavor.
Flour
Provides structure so the cakes hold their shape on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that lightens the cakes.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. Batter with baking soda and acid begins leavening right away, so it should be cooked promptly once mixed. Browning on both sides depends on steady heat, and flipping too early can tear the cakes.

“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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