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American Pancakes

A simple batter of flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs, milk, and butter 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: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

American Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. In another bowl, whisk eggs, milk, 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 as its proteins form gluten when mixed with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the pancakes rise and become light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the pancakes hold together while setting.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, making the batter pourable.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps with golden browning.

The step that matters

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

“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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