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Dessert

Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

A batter of sour milk, cornmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, and egg cooked on a griddle to make cornmeal pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the sour milk, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add the cornmeal and flour, stirring until combined.

  3. Beat in the egg until the batter is smooth.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Heat a griddle over medium heat and lightly grease it.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes and cook until bubbles form.

  3. Flip and cook until golden brown on the other side.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, helping the cakes rise.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and the grainy, slightly crisp texture of the pancakes.
Flour
Adds structure so the batter holds together while cooking.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.

The step that matters

Beat in the egg until the batter is smooth. Mixing until smooth distributes the egg and dry ingredients evenly, so the batter bubbles and rises consistently. Lumps can leave pockets of dry cornmeal or flour that cook unevenly.

“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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