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Breakfast

Breakfast Griddle-cakes

A quick batter of buttermilk, eggs, flour, salt, and baking soda cooked on a griddle.

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 ↓

Breakfast Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Gradually add flour until the batter thickens.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and 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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Buttermilk or sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the buttermilk to release gas, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure as they set and enrich the batter, helping the cakes hold together.
Flour
Thickens the batter and forms the main structure that sets when the cakes cook.

The step that matters

Cooking both sides until golden brown. The griddle must be hot enough for the surface to brown, which adds flavor through browning reactions, but not so hot that the outside burns before the centre sets. Cook until bubbles form and the underside is golden before turning.

“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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