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Breakfast

Johnny Cakes

A cornmeal and wheat flour pancake made with eggs, yeast, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Johnny Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the cornmeal and wheat flour together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, yeast, salt, and milk, then stir until well combined.

Cook

  1. Pour the batter onto a hot griddle or skillet.

  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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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 grainy, sturdy texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help hold the cakes together while they cook.
Yeast
Ferments slightly, adding lift and a more airy, tender crumb to the cakes.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and flour so the batter forms a pourable consistency.
Wheat flour
Adds some gluten structure to help the cakes hold their shape.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. The batter needs a hot griddle so the surface sets quickly and browns through Maillard reactions. A cool pan lets the cakes spread and absorb oil, leaving them pale, soggy, and fragile when flipped.

“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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