Skip to main content
Main

Potato Griddle Cakes

A batter of flour, grated potatoes, eggs, milk, and spices cooked on a hot griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, grated potatoes, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and sugar.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and add enough milk to create a batter.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.

Cook

  1. Cook the batter quickly on a hot griddle 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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pancakes together.
Grated potatoes
Supply the bulk and moisture that give the pancakes a tender, starchy interior.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set.

The step that matters

Cook the batter quickly on a hot griddle. Grated potatoes darken and turn gray if they sit exposed to air, and a batter that waits too long loses its lift from the baking powder. A hot griddle sets the outside quickly and browns it before the interior becomes dense.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, cinnamon, sugar, milk):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, cinnamon, sugar, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More potato pancakes recipes

German 6 See all 62 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes