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Cornmeal Griddle Cakes

A quick griddle cake made with cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cornmeal Griddle Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix and sift the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

  2. Gradually add the cornmeal to the boiling water; cook for 5 minutes and then cool.

Make the batter

  1. Add the beaten egg, milk, and melted butter to the mixture.

  2. Combine with the flour mixture and cook on a griddle.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Gives the pancakes a coarse, slightly grainy texture and a distinct corn flavor.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancakes together as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pancakes rise and become light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps browning on the griddle.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and cornmeal to form a pourable batter.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornmeal in boiling water. Cornmeal must be fully hydrated and cooked in boiling water before mixing, so it softens and does not leave a gritty texture. Cooling it before combining keeps the batter from thinning or cooking the egg prematurely.

“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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