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Breakfast

Plain Pancakes

A simple batter of flour, milk, lard, and eggs is fried into thin pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 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 ↓

Plain Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift half a pound or a pint of flour.

  2. Beat seven eggs very light, and stir them gradually into a quart of rich milk.

  3. Add the flour by degrees to make a thin batter.

  4. Mix the batter very smooth, pressing out all the lumps with the back of a spoon.

Fry and serve

  1. Set the frying pan over the fire, and when it is hot, grease it with a spoonful of lard.

  2. Pour a ladleful of batter into the pan, and fry until a light brown, turning it with care to prevent breaking.

  3. Make each pancake large enough to cover the bottom of a dessert plate; grease the pan each time.

  4. Serve the pancakes hot, accompanied by powdered sugar and nutmeg mixed in a small glass bowl.

  5. Have wine with them also.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

797Calories
27 gProtein
27 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Egg1 large egg (50g)78

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Leslie. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the pancakes.
Flour
Provides the body that thickens the batter and gives the pancakes structure.
Milk
Thins the batter and adds moisture and richness.
Lard
Greases the pan so the pancakes release cleanly and brown evenly.

The step that matters

Turning the pancake. A thin batter sets fragile, so the pancake must be fried until its underside is set and lightly browned before turning. Turning too early tears it, and a pan that is not greased between pancakes lets them stick.

“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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