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Sour Milk Griddle-cakes

Sour milk griddle-cakes are a batter of sour milk, flour, eggs, salt, butter, and baking soda cooked on a hot griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Sour Milk Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk and enough sifted flour to create a thick batter that runs from the bowl.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, salt, melted butter, and the dissolved baking soda.

Cook

  1. Preheat a well-greased griddle over high heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle, cooking until browned 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 + 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. Milk + flourtop 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 + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to make the pancakes rise and gives a tangy flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas, lightening the batter as it cooks.
Sifted flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that sets the pancakes and gives them body.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping bind the batter and set during cooking.
Melted butter
Adds fat for flavor and tenderness and helps the surface brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before adding it. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed so it reacts with the sour milk's acid throughout the batter. Unevenly mixed soda can leave pockets that over-rise, bitter spots, or flat areas.

“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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