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Corn Meal Waffles

A batter of eggs, butter, flour, cornmeal, milk, and baking soda, folded with egg whites, cooked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Corn Meal Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the beaten egg yolks, butter, flour, salt, and sweet milk.

  2. Gradually add the sifted cornmeal and baking soda, mixing until smooth.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Cook

  1. Preheat the waffle iron.

  2. Pour the batter into the waffle iron and cook until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 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. Egg + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main structure and gives the waffles their grainy texture.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add lightness and help the waffles rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that helps the waffles rise.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites hold air bubbles that give lift. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact; stirring vigorously deflates them and leaves the waffles dense.

“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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