Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Corn-heal Griddle-cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sift the cornmeal into a bowl and mix in the salt.
Pour boiling water over the cornmeal until it forms a stiff mass and let it cool.
Make the batter
Add the butter and flour, then mix in enough water to achieve a stiff batter.
Cook
Preheat a griddle and bake the mixture on it until golden brown.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Yellow cornmeal
- Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their corn flavour and grainy texture.
- Boiling water
- Scalds the cornmeal, softening its starch so the mass holds together as a stiff dough.
- All-purpose flour
- Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the cakes more structure and helps them hold their shape.
- Butter
- Adds fat that contributes richness and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
The step that matters
Let the scalded cornmeal cool before adding the rest. Boiling water gelatinises the cornmeal starch and forms a stiff mass. Letting it cool lets the starch set so the batter can be handled and mixed without becoming gummy or runny.
“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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