Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Flannel Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix the Indian meal and flour together.
Add enough water to make a batter slightly thicker than for buckwheat cakes.
Stir in the salt and yeast, then set the mixture in a warm place to rise.
Cook and serve
Once light, bake the batter on a griddle.
Serve hot with butter.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Fine indian meal
- Provides the main body and coarse, grainy texture of the cakes.
- Flour
- Adds structure so the batter holds its shape while baking.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the batter rise and lightens the finished cakes.
The step that matters
Let the batter rise until light. Yeast gives off carbon dioxide as it works, and the batter traps this gas to become airy. Baking before the batter has risen traps less gas, so the cakes come out dense.
“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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