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Cracked Wheat Griddles

A griddle cake made from cooked cracked wheat, eggs, butter, sour milk, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cracked Wheat Griddles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Separate the grains of cracked wheat.

  2. Add the sour milk to the wheat.

  3. Cream the butter and beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  4. Stir the butter and eggs into the wheat mixture.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of warm water and stir it into the mixture.

  6. Add flour until the batter reaches a griddle consistency.

Cook

  1. Bake on a hot, greased griddle 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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 richness and structure as they set on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas, helping the griddles rise and lighten.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and its liquid hydrates the wheat and flour.
Cracked wheat
Provides bulk, a nutty flavor and a hearty, slightly chewy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender crumb, and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Bake on a hot, greased griddle until golden brown. If the griddle is not hot enough, the batter spreads and absorbs fat without setting, producing pale, greasy griddles. Once the baking soda has been stirred in, the batter should be cooked promptly, because the gas it produces escapes as the batter stands.

“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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