Name: Pancakes
Ingredients: 1 cup bread crumbs; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 ⅔ cups skim milk; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 cup flour; 1 teaspoon melted fat; 4 teaspoons baking powder; 1 egg

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Pancakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Soak the bread crumbs in skim milk for 45 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients to the soaked crumbs.

Cook

Cook on a hot griddle like ordinary pancakes.

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.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Bread crumbs: Soak in milk to soften and add body and moisture to the batter.
Flour: Provides the main structure that sets as the pancakes cook.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder: Releases gas when heated, helping the pancakes rise and turn light.
Skim milk: Hydrates the flour and crumbs to form the batter and adds moisture.

“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.