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Raised Batter Cakes

A batter cake made from semolina, flour, milk, yeast, and butter, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Raised Batter Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the Southern Indian meal, flour, milk, yeast, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Cover and let the mixture rise overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. In the morning, add the melted butter and baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  2. Fry the batter on a griddle until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Southern indian meal
Forms the main body of the batter and gives the pancakes their grainy texture.
Flour
Adds structure so the batter holds together when fried.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes it rise and become airy.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the meal and flour into a pourable batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the fermented batter to add lift and help browning.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Frying on the griddle. The batter is fermented and loose, so it needs a moderately hot, lightly greased griddle. Too cool and the pancakes stay pale and soggy; too hot and the outside browns before the inside cooks through.

“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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