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Corn Meal Crumpets

A quick batter of sour milk, flour, egg, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cornmeal cooked on a griddle.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk or buttermilk, flour, beaten egg, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and mix it into the batter.

  3. Add Indian meal until the batter reaches the right consistency.

  4. Test a spoonful on a griddle; adjust with more flour if too thin or more milk if too thick.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook on the griddle and serve hot immediately, avoiding stacking.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Sour milk or buttermilk
Provides the liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumpets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Flour
Adds structure so the batter holds together, and can be added to thicken it.
Indian meal (cornmeal)
Gives body, texture and corn flavor, and is added to reach the desired batter consistency.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and cooking promptly. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk or buttermilk to release gas. Once the batter is mixed, that reaction starts, so the batter should be cooked soon after mixing to keep the lift that makes the crumpets light.

“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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