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Buttermilk Cakes

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Buttermilk Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Add salt to taste.

  3. Gradually mix in flour until the batter is stiff enough to pour onto a griddle.

Cook

  1. Cook on a preheated griddle 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the cakes rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release carbon dioxide, lightening the batter so it rises.
Flour
Provides structure once mixed with liquid, giving the stiff batter body that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Gradually mixing in the flour. Adding flour slowly lets you judge stiffness by eye, so the batter is thick enough to hold its shape on the griddle without becoming dense from overmixing. Overworked flour develops gluten and toughens the 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.

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