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Breakfast

Oatmeal Pancakes

A batter of oats, flour, eggs, and milk is cooked on a griddle to make pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Oats and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,119 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Oatmeal Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the porridge

  1. Boil the rolled oats in water until they form a thick porridge.

  2. Allow the porridge to cool.

Make the batter and cook

  1. Mix the cooled porridge with flour, eggs, baking powder, salt, and enough milk to create a fairly thin batter.

  2. Heat a greased griddle.

  3. Fry the batter 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. Oats + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Oats + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Rolled oats
Cooked into porridge, they add body and a soft, tender crumb to the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancakes together as they cook.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set on the griddle.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the pancakes rise and become light.

The step that matters

Fry the batter until golden brown on both sides. The griddle must be hot and greased before the batter goes on. Too cool and the pancakes soak up fat and turn pale and dense; too hot and the outside browns before the centre sets.

“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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