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Corn-meal Flapjacks

A batter of sour or buttermilk, eggs, salt, baking soda, molasses, lard, and cornmeal cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and molasses work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 526 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Corn-meal Flapjacks

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine sour or buttermilk and beaten eggs.

  2. Add salt, dissolved baking soda, molasses, and melted lard.

  3. Stir in enough meal to create a batter slightly thicker than flannel cakes.

  4. Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown on both sides.

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. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

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

  3. Egg + molassestop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,879 recipes

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 as they set on the griddle.
Sour or buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lighten the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the flapjacks.
Cornmeal (in the method)
Provides the main body and corn flavor of the flapjacks.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and helps the surface brown on the griddle.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor, and encourages browning.

The step that matters

Stirring in the meal. The batter should be slightly thicker than flannel cakes. Too much meal makes the flapjacks dense and dry, while too little makes them thin and flat. Add the meal gradually until the batter reaches the right consistency.

“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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