Name: Sponge Griddle Cakes
Ingredients: 1 quart of mush; 1 pint of buttermilk; 1 pint of sweet milk or water; 1 teaspoon of baking soda; Flour (enough to make a batter)

Why it works: Buttermilk and flour 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 ↓

Sponge Griddle Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

While the mush is warm, add buttermilk, sweet milk or water, and baking soda.
Stir in flour until you achieve a batter consistency.
Let the batter rise overnight.

Bake and serve

Bake on a griddle and serve hot.

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.

Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Buttermilk + milktop 41% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together9 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Mush: Provides the bulk and moisture that give the batter its body.
Buttermilk: Adds acidity and tenderness, and reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the buttermilk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Flour: Gives the batter structure so the cakes hold their shape on the griddle.

“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.