Skip to main content
Dessert

German Pancake

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, salt, and butter cooked in a pan to a golden pancake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

German Pancake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly without separating the yolks and whites.

  2. Add salt to the eggs.

  3. Sift in the flour.

  4. Gradually add the milk while beating well.

Cook the pancake

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan.

  2. Pour the batter into the pan.

  3. Cook slowly until the bottom is browned.

  4. Grease a large pie plate.

  5. Slip the pancake onto the pie plate.

  6. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter to the frying pan.

  7. When the pan is hot, turn the uncooked side of the pancake down.

  8. Brown the uncooked side.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately with sugar and lemon slices or any desired preserve or syrup.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Provide structure and lift, setting the batter as it cooks.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it holds its shape while baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter puff and brown in the pan.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the bottom crisp and brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until the bottom is browned. Moderate heat lets the batter set and rise before the surface browns, while a too-hot pan can scorch the bottom before the center cooks through.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes