Skip to main content
Main

Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are griddle cakes made from a stiff batter of milk, butter, eggs, salt, potato yeast, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Heat 1 pint of sweet milk and melt 2 ounces of butter in it.

  2. Add 1 pint of cold milk and the well-beaten yolks of 4 eggs.

  3. Stir in 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 tablespoons of potato yeast.

  4. Add enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  5. Set the batter in a warm place to rise for 3 hours or overnight.

Cook

  1. Before baking, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Fry the batter like any other griddle cakes.

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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 stiff batter structure that holds the cakes together when cooked.
Potato yeast
Ferments the batter during the long rise, producing gas that makes the cakes light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the fat into the batter, giving a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air that adds lightness to the cakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the finished cakes.

The step that matters

Set the batter in a warm place to rise. The yeast needs warmth and time to ferment; a cold or rushed rise leaves the cakes dense and flat. Folding in the egg whites only after the rise keeps their trapped air from collapsing.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

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

“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

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes