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Pancakes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Pancakes

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine ¼ pound sifted flour, 1 egg, and ½ cup milk. Stir to a smooth paste.

  2. Add 1¾ cups milk, 2 ounces melted butter, and a pinch of salt. Mix well and strain if lumpy.

  3. Heat a small piece of butter in a frying pan. Pour in 2 tablespoons of batter, spreading it to cover the pan.

  4. Fry until brown on one side, then flip to cook the other side. Transfer to a dish.

  5. Once all batter is cooked, sprinkle pancakes with sugar and serve on a hot dish with cut lemon.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, brandy, butter, sugar, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, brandy, butter, sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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