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Dessert

Squash Griddle-Cakes

A batter of flour, milk, eggs, squash, and leavening is cooked on a griddle to make sweet, savory pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Squash Griddle-Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour with the cream of tartar, baking soda, sugar, and salt, then sift together.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add them to the squash and milk.

  3. Gradually pour the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, beating until smooth and light.

  4. If a thicker batter is desired, add a little more flour.

Cook

  1. Fry on a hot griddle until golden brown.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the heat.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to release gas, helping the pancakes rise.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pancake as its starches set when cooked.
Squash
Adds moisture, body, and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Beating the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Adding the dry ingredients gradually and beating only until smooth keeps the batter light. Overbeating develops gluten in the flour, which can make the pancakes tough, while the leavening gas needs to be trapped in the batter to lift it.

“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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