Skip to main content
Main

Newport Waffles

A batter of Indian meal, butter, salt, eggs, flour, buttermilk, baking soda, and sweet milk baked in waffle irons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Newport Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Make the Indian meal into mush in the usual way.

  2. While hot, stir in the butter and salt.

  3. Set the mixture aside to cool.

  4. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately until very light.

  5. Add the eggs to the cooled mush.

  6. Gradually mix in the flour.

  7. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk or sour cream.

  8. Add the dissolved baking soda mixture to the batter.

  9. Add sweet milk until the batter reaches a thin consistency.

Bake the waffles

  1. Preheat the waffle irons for one hour.

  2. Butter the irons thoroughly.

  3. Fill the irons half full of batter.

  4. Bake the batter quickly.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Whipped separated yolks and whites add lightness and help the waffles rise and stay tender.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the waffle together once baked.
Buttermilk or sour cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk or sour cream to produce gas that makes the waffles rise.
Indian meal
Cornmeal gives the waffles their grainy texture and corn flavor.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites and yolks separately until very light. Whipped whites trap air that expands in the heat, giving a light, crisp-edged waffle. Under-beaten whites leave the batter dense and flat.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes