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Dessert

Griddle Cakes

A quick griddle cake made with cornmeal, flour, milk, yeast, and butter, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Griddle Cakes

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the yeast in cold water.

  2. Heat the milk to boiling and pour it over the cornmeal and butter.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then add the dissolved yeast, salt, and sugar.

  4. Cover and let rise overnight.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle and pour batter onto it.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Cornmeal
Provides the corn flavour and a coarse, tender texture in the cakes.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure so the batter holds its shape when cooked.
Yeast
Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that makes the cakes rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and the boiling step softens the cornmeal.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the cakes brown.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise overnight. The yeast needs time to ferment the batter fully. Rising too briefly leaves the cakes dense, while the slow fermentation builds flavour and lightness.

“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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