Skip to main content
Breakfast

American Pancakes

A quick, fluffy pancake made with buttermilk, flour, baking powder, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

American Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, whisk buttermilk, egg, and melted butter.

  3. Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed; do not overmix.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Heat a griddle or frying pan over medium heat and grease lightly.

  2. Pour ¼ cup of batter for each pancake onto the griddle.

  3. Cook until bubbles form on the surface, then flip and cook until golden brown.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together as it sets.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity works with the baking soda to help lift the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor and helps the pancakes brown.

The step that matters

Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed. Stirring too much develops gluten in the flour, which makes pancakes tough and chewy instead of tender. A few lumps are fine and should be left in the batter.

“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.

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes