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Dessert

Molasses Delights

A sweet griddle cake made from meal, hominy, butter, molasses, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Molasses Delights

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the meal or flour, soft-boiled hominy, and butter.

  2. Add the molasses and enough milk to create a stiff batter.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle over medium heat.

  2. Pour the batter onto the griddle and cook 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. Butter + milktop 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Meal or flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together.
Soft-boiled hominy
Adds body and a soft, tender texture to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Clear molasses
Adds sweetness and flavor, and helps the pancakes brown deeply.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the batter forms a stiff, spreadable mix.

The step that matters

Cooking on the griddle until golden brown on both sides. Molasses contains sugars that darken quickly, so the heat should be moderate. Too hot and the outside burns before the centre sets. Flip only when the underside is set and browned.

“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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