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Indian Cakes

A batter of milk, flour, meal, and baking soda is cooked on a griddle to make Indian pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Indian Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk, sweet milk, flour, meal, salt, and baking soda.

  2. If desired, add the eggs and mix well.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle over low heat.

  2. Pour the batter onto the griddle.

  3. Fry slowly 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.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together as it cooks.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to make the pancakes rise and turn tender.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter and helping it set during cooking.

The step that matters

Fry slowly over low heat. Low, gentle heat lets the centre cook through before the outside browns. Higher heat can scorch the surface while the inside stays raw and doughy.

“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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