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Indian Meal Breakfast Cakes

A batter of Indian meal, eggs, butter, baking soda, milk, and salt baked into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Indian Meal Breakfast Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until thick and light.

  2. Cut the butter into the Indian meal.

  3. Pour enough boiling water over the mixture to wet it.

  4. Once cool, add the eggs and salt.

  5. Mix the dissolved baking soda into the milk.

  6. Add enough milk to create a thick batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter square tin pans and fill them about two-thirds full.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

  3. Cut into squares and serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Forms the main body of the cake, giving it its structure and crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the crumb.
Milk
Supplies moisture and loosens the mixture into a spreadable batter.

The step that matters

Add the eggs only once the mixture has cooled. Beaten eggs added to a very hot mixture can start to cook and curdle, and they will not blend evenly into the batter. Letting the boiling-water-moistened meal cool first keeps the eggs smooth and evenly distributed.

“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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