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 ↓
Griddle Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the eggs and salt thoroughly.
Add the sour milk and stir well.
Mix in the sifted flour.
Dissolve the baking soda in hot water, add it to the mixture and beat well.
Cook the griddle cakes
Cook immediately on a very hot griddle.
Drop batter onto the griddle using a tablespoon.
When brown on one side, quickly turn with a knife.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the cakes set.
- Sour milk or buttermilk
- Provides the liquid and its acidity, which reacts with the baking soda.
- Sifted flour
- Provides the main structure that sets when the cakes cook.
- Baking soda (in the method)
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas that makes the cakes rise.
The step that matters
Cook immediately on a very hot griddle. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk. If the batter waits, the gas escapes before the cakes set, so they come out flatter and denser. A very hot griddle sets the outside quickly and locks in the rise.
“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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