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Dessert

Raised Johnny Cakes

A batter of bolted meal, flour, sugar, egg, baking powder, salt, milk, and butter cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Raised Johnny Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the bolted meal, flour, sugar, beaten egg, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Gradually add milk to achieve a thin batter consistency.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a greased griddle over high heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve hot with plenty of butter.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Bolted meal
Provides the main cornmeal body and grainy texture of the cakes.
Flour
Adds structure so the cakes hold together after cooking.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the cakes puff slightly.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during cooking.

The step that matters

Cooking on the griddle. The griddle must be hot and greased before the batter goes on. A cold surface lets the thin batter spread and stick, and the cakes absorb grease and turn heavy instead of browning evenly.

“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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