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Corn Batter-cakes and Johnny-cakes

Corn batter cakes are made by mixing cornmeal with water, optionally baking soda and wheat flour, then cooking on a greased griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Batter-cakes and Johnny-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix cornmeal with enough water to form a batter.

  2. If the cornmeal is not fresh, add ¼ teaspoon of baking soda.

  3. For easier handling, add a little wheat flour if the batter is difficult to bake.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a griddle and grease it.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle to form cakes.

  3. Cook until the cakes are firm enough to turn without breaking.

  4. Serve the cakes hot on a warm plate.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them their grainy structure and flavor.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-based structure, making the batter easier to handle and turn.
Baking soda
Raises the batter slightly and helps offset acidity in older cornmeal.

The step that matters

Cook until firm enough to turn. Cornmeal batter has no gluten to hold it together, so the cakes set only as the starch gelatinizes and the surface firms. Turning too early makes them break apart.

“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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