Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Flannel Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, lard, salt, and yeast dissolved in lukewarm water.
Add enough warm water to create a stiff batter.
Cover and let rise overnight.
Finish and bake
The next morning, stir in the sugar.
Bake on a greased baking surface or soapstone.
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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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg 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
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main body and the characteristic grainy texture of the cakes.
- Flour
- Adds structure so the batter holds together after rising and baking.
- Yeast
- Produces gas during the overnight rise, leavening the batter and giving it a light texture.
- Lard
- Adds fat, contributing tenderness and a richer mouthfeel to the cakes.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and some browning during baking.
The step that matters
Overnight rise. The batter must rise long enough for the yeast to produce gas and develop flavor. Too short a rise leaves the cakes dense, while an overlong rise can exhaust the yeast and cause collapse.
“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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