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Dessert

Pan Cakes

Pan cakes are fried batter made from milk, eggs, baking soda, salt, flour, and cooked in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Pan Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a pan over high heat.

  2. Pour batter into the hot lard and fry 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour 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 as they set when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds its shape while frying.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to lift it and help it rise and brown.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Pouring batter into hot lard. The lard must be hot enough so the batter sets and browns quickly on the outside. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb fat and turn greasy and dense.

“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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