Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Griddle Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together.
Add half the sour milk.
Beat until smooth.
Stir in the remaining sour milk.
Add the melted fat and beat well.
Cook and serve
Pour spoonfuls of the batter onto a slightly greased, hot griddle.
Cook until lightly browned on one side.
Turn and cook the other side.
Serve very hot.
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.
-
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas, lightening the batter.
- Melted fat
- Adds richness and tenderness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
The step that matters
Cook on a hot, lightly greased griddle. The griddle must be hot enough to set the batter quickly so the cakes rise and brown evenly. If it is too cool, the batter spreads and absorbs fat, giving pale, heavy cakes.
“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.
More griddle cakes recipes
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.