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Breakfast

Perfect Pancakes

A simple pancake recipe using sour milk, baking soda, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Perfect Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together flour, salt, and sugar.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in sour milk and gradually add to the flour, beating until smooth.

  3. Add the well-beaten egg and mix well.

Cook

  1. Heat an iron griddle and lightly grease it with Cottolene.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and let it spread until quite thin.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter once mixed with liquid and egg.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lightens the pancakes.
Sour milk
Supplies the acid that activates the baking soda and adds moisture.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during cooking.

The step that matters

Pour batter onto the griddle and let it spread until quite thin.. Batter poured too thick cooks unevenly, staying doughy inside before the outside browns. Spreading it thin lets heat reach the center so the pancake cooks through 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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