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Dessert

Wheaten Griddle-Cakes

A griddle cake made with wheaten flour, sour milk, baking soda, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Wheaten Griddle-Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the sour milk, egg yolks, and flour to form a batter.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water and add it to the batter.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter gently.

Cook

  1. Preheat a hot griddle and pour batter to form cakes.

  2. Cook until light and tender, and nicely browned without scorching.

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. Flour + milktop 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).

Flour and milk 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and beaten whites add lightness and airy structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the cakes rise and turn tender.
Sour milk or cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang to the batter.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cakes cook.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten stiff, and deflating them by stirring vigorously loses the lift that makes the cakes light. Fold gently and keep the batter airy.

“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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