Name: Sour Milk Batter Cakes
Ingredients: 1 egg; 2 ⅓ cups sour milk; 2 ¾ cups flour; 2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder; ¾ teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sour Milk Batter Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat the egg until light, then add the sour milk.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the liquid mixture.
Beat the mixture hard for one minute.
If the batter seems thin, add a few sprinkles of additional flour.

Cook

Bake on a lightly greased griddle or soapstone griddle.

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.

Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 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

Egg: Binds the batter and adds richness and structure to the cakes.
Sour milk: Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the leavening to lift the cakes.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they set.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking so the cakes rise and turn light.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas and aid rising and browning.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for one minute. Beating develops gluten in the flour, which gives the cakes structure and chew. Beating too little leaves them crumbly, while the leavening gas is released as the batter sits, so it should be cooked promptly after mixing.

“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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Sour Milk Batter Cakes