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Wheat Cakes

A simple batter of wheat flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, butter, eggs, and milk cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Wheat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the wheat flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

  2. Add the melted butter and beaten eggs to the dry ingredients.

  3. Gradually mix in enough milk to achieve a thin batter consistency.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot griddle 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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Wheat flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as its starches set during cooking.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated and wet, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set as it cooks.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown evenly on the griddle.

The step that matters

Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown on both sides. If the griddle is not hot enough, the cakes absorb grease and cook slowly, turning pale and dense. Enough heat sets the batter quickly and browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, while the baking powder gives lift before the centre sets.

“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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