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Indian-meal Breakfast Cakes

A batter of cornmeal, eggs, milk, baking soda, and salt baked into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Indian-meal Breakfast Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Pour boiling water into a quart of cornmeal and stir until wet.

  2. Add two well-beaten eggs and enough milk to make a thick batter.

  3. Dissolve 1 teaspoon of dry saleratus in warm water and mix it into the batter with a small amount of salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter square tin pans and fill them two-thirds full with the batter.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

  3. Cut into squares and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them their structure and grainy texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the cakes as they bake.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the cornmeal into a spreadable batter.
Saleratus (baking soda)
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that lightens the cakes as they rise.

The step that matters

Dissolving the saleratus in warm water before mixing. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed through the batter; clumps leave bitter, patchy spots and uneven rising. Dissolving it first spreads the leavening through the whole batter.

“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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