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Griddle Cakes

A batter of milk, eggs, salt, butter, yeast, and flour cooked on a griddle into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Griddle Cakes

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine milk, eggs, salt, and melted butter.

  2. Stir in yeast and enough flour to create a batter similar in thickness to buckwheat cake batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle and pour batter to form cakes.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve with a sauce made of butter, sugar, water, and nutmeg if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold together as the cakes set.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, giving the cakes rise and a lighter, airy texture.
White flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the batter body and the cakes their structure.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavor, and helps the cakes brown and stay tender.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. Heat must be moderate so the centers cook through before the outside browns too far. Browning comes from Maillard reactions at the surface, so flipping once both sides are golden helps the cakes cook evenly.

“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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