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Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

A batter of sour buttermilk, flour, cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, and eggs cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

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 Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Add the sour buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, flour, corn meal, salt, and sugar to the eggs.

  3. Stir until combined, then add enough corn meal to make a rather thin batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a griddle over medium‑high heat and grease it.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve warm with butter and maple syrup.

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. 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 + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 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).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Sour buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with the leavening to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour buttermilk's acidity to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Baking powder
Provides additional lift so the cakes rise as they cook.
Flour
Provides structure that holds the cakes together as they set.
Corn meal
Gives the cakes their grainy texture and flavor and helps them brown.

The step that matters

Stir until combined, then thin the batter. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour and can make the cakes tough, while a batter that is too thick will not spread and cook evenly. Stir just until combined and adjust the consistency so it pours easily.

“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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