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Breakfast Griddle-cakes

A batter of cornmeal, flour, egg, and buttermilk 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: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Breakfast Griddle-cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stir boiling water into cornmeal until it forms a stiff mush and let it cool.

  2. Add the egg, flour, baking soda, and enough buttermilk to create a batter that is not too thin.

  3. Cook on a griddle like buckwheat cakes.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure to the cakes as they cook.
Flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the cakes hold their shape on the griddle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity to activate the baking soda and contributes moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Let the cornmeal mush cool before mixing the batter. Boiling water hydrates the cornmeal into a stiff mush; cooling it prevents the hot mush from scrambling the egg and lets the starches set so the batter holds its consistency.

“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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