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Corn Meal Griddle-cakes

A batter of cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, and sour milk is cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Corn Meal Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine cornmeal, wheat flour, and salt.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and enough sour milk to achieve the right consistency.

  3. Beat the mixture until very light.

  4. Stir in the baking soda dissolved in water, or baking powder if using sweet milk.

  5. In another bowl, mix Graham flour and Indian meal with salt.

  6. Pour in warm water to create a batter thicker than buckwheat cake batter.

  7. Add yeast and let the mixture rise until light.

Cook

  1. Bake on a griddle over medium heat.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Cornmeal
Provides the grainy texture and main body of the cakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold together and turn light when beaten.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity, and its acid reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas, lifting the batter as it cooks.
Yeast
Ferments the batter, producing gas that makes it rise and adds a mild tangy flavor.
Graham flour
Adds a coarser, nutty texture and a heartier body to the batter.

The step that matters

Let the yeast batter rise until light. Yeast produces gas as it ferments, and that gas trapped in the batter gives the cakes their lift. A batter that has not risen enough will bake up dense and heavy.

“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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