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Cornmeal Cakes

Fried cakes made from cornmeal, flour, milk, eggs, and cooked rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cornmeal Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, and cooked rice.

  2. Add milk and the beaten egg yolks, mixing well.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan and drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat.

  2. 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. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 body of the cakes and gives them their grainy texture and corn flavor.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and binding; whites, beaten stiff, lighten the batter and help the cakes rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the cornmeal so the batter can spoon and cook evenly.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, giving the cakes lift and a lighter crumb.
Cooked rice
Adds softness and moisture to the batter, giving the cakes a tender interior.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites trap air that gives the cakes lift. Vigorous stirring knocks that air out, leaving dense, flat 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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