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Newport Waffles

A batter of Indian meal, butter, salt, eggs, flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and milk baked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Newport Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mush

  1. Prepare 1 pint of Indian meal into mush as usual and add a small lump of butter and 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt while hot.

  2. Set aside to cool.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the whites and yolks of 4 eggs separately until very light.

  2. Combine the eggs with the cooled mush and gradually mix in 1 quart of all-purpose flour.

  3. Dissolve ½ teaspoon of baking soda in ½ pint of buttermilk or sour cream and add to the mixture.

  4. Adjust the batter to a thin consistency with sweet milk as needed.

Bake

  1. Preheat waffle irons for 1 hour before baking.

  2. Butter the irons thoroughly.

  3. Fill the irons half full with batter and bake quickly over a brisk fire.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Whipped separately, the whites and yolks add lightness and help the waffles rise and set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk or sour cream to release gas, helping the batter rise and lighten.
Buttermilk or sour cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the waffles together as they set.
Indian meal
Cornmeal mush supplies the corn flavour and a grainy, crisp-edged texture.

The step that matters

Fill the irons half full and bake quickly. Overfilling lets batter spill and bake unevenly, while too-slow baking over low heat dries the waffle. A hot, brisk fire sets the outside quickly while the inside stays moist.

“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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