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Buttermilk Griddle Cakes

A quick batter of buttermilk, flour, baking soda, salt, and egg, cooked on a hot griddle greased with salt pork fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  2. Add the buttermilk and salt, and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in 2 tablespoons of boiling water.

  4. Stir the dissolved baking soda into the buttermilk mixture.

  5. Gradually add flour while stirring until the batter is thin enough to pour smoothly from a spoon.

  6. Beat the batter well.

Bake

  1. Bake quickly on a hot griddle greased with fat from salt pork.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + porktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Flour + porktop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Buttermilk
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda and adds tenderness and tang to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acid to produce carbon dioxide, which lifts the cakes as they bake.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the cakes' structure as they cook.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that form the cakes' body once heated.

The step that matters

Bake quickly on a hot griddle. The griddle must be hot and well greased so the batter sets quickly on contact. Because the baking soda's lift begins as soon as it meets the acid, a slow or cool griddle lets the gas escape before the batter sets, leaving flat, dense cakes.

“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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