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Corn Meal Batter Cakes

Thin batter cakes made from cornmeal, flour, buttermilk, and eggs, cooked on a hot griddle.

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

Corn Meal Batter Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the buttermilk.

  2. Add the sugar, salt, and baking soda, and stir well.

  3. Gradually add the flour and melted butter, mixing until smooth.

  4. Incorporate enough cornmeal to achieve a thin batter consistency.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot 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).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure to the cakes as they cook.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Cornmeal
Provides the grainy body and texture that sets these cakes apart from flour-only batter.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown on both sides. A griddle that is not hot enough lets the cakes absorb fat and steam before browning, leaving them pale and dense. Enough heat sets the surface quickly and drives the browning reactions that give golden colour and flavour.

“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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