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Breakfast

Sally Lunn

A batter-based pancake made with flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, baking powder, and salt, baked until golden.

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 ↓

Sally Lunn

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, butter, sugar, salt, and baking powder, then mix well until combined.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add the milk.

  3. Add the milk and egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into greased pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  3. Serve very hot with plenty of butter.

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter as its proteins and starches set in the oven.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold its shape as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, lifting the batter so it rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter pours and bakes evenly.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter until smooth. Once the flour is wet, stirring develops gluten, which makes the crumb tough and dense. Mix only until the batter is smooth so the pancake stays light and tender.

“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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