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Dessert

Graham Batter Cakes

A simple cake made with buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and Graham flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour 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 ↓

Graham Batter Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add enough Graham flour to achieve a batter consistency.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook until golden brown.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Provides liquid and acidity that works with the leavening to lighten the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.
Baking powder
Adds additional leavening so the cakes rise and stay light as they cook.
Graham flour
Forms the body of the cakes and sets their structure as the batter cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the first side until bubbles form. Bubbles signal that the batter has set enough at the surface to hold its shape when flipped. Flipping too early can tear the cake, while waiting too long can dry it out.

“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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