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 ↓
Excellent Batter Cakes Without Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Sift flour into a bowl.
Add salt, syrup, and melted lard to the flour.
Gradually add the lukewarm milk and water in which the yeast has been dissolved.
Beat the batter thoroughly until smooth.
Set aside overnight to rise.
Cook
In the morning, beat the batter well and bake on a well-greased griddle.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,540 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,143 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the batter once it is mixed with liquid.
- Yeast
- Produces gas during the overnight rise, leavening the batter so the cakes are light.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderises the cakes and helps them brown on the griddle.
- Syrup
- Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown.
- Milk
- Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and adds richness.
The step that matters
Overnight rise. The yeast needs time at a suitable warm temperature to produce gas that leavens the batter. Too short a rise leaves the cakes dense, and the batter must be beaten again before cooking to knock out large bubbles and redistribute the gas evenly.
“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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