Name: Rhode Island Johnny Cakes
Ingredients: 2 cups cornmeal; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; boiling water (enough to wet the meal); 1 cup all-purpose flour; 1 egg; 1 tablespoon sugar; milk (enough to make a thin batter); ½ teaspoon baking powder; lard (for greasing the griddle)

Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Rhode Island Johnny Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine cornmeal and coarse sea salt.
Pour boiling water over the mixture to wet all the meal.
Add flour, egg, sugar, and enough milk to create a thin batter.
Stir in baking powder.

Cook

Grease a griddle with lard and heat it.
Pour batter onto the griddle 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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Cornmeal: Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their corn flavor and grainy texture.
Boiling water: Wets the cornmeal and softens it so the batter hydrates before cooking.
All-purpose flour: Adds structure so the cakes hold together rather than crumbling.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps give the cakes structure.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking to lighten the cakes and help them rise.

The step that matters

Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides. Cornmeal browns through the Maillard reaction, which gives flavor and color. Cooking on a properly heated, greased griddle sets the outside quickly so the cakes release cleanly and do not stick or burn before the centers cook through.

“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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Rhode Island Johnny Cakes