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 ↓
French Pancakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat potato starch, eggs, powdered sugar, and enough water to make a porridge‑like batter.
Add milk until the batter reaches the desired consistency.
Cook and serve
Heat a frying pan over medium heat and butter it.
Pour a large spoonful of batter into the pan and spread it evenly.
Cook until the pancake is done, then transfer it to a dish.
Sprinkle with crushed sugar or cover with jelly before serving.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potato starch
- Thickens the batter and gives the pancakes a tender, delicate texture.
- Eggs
- Provide structure and set the thin pancake as it cooks.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the batter.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the batter to the desired consistency.
- Butter
- Adds fat for frying, helping prevent sticking and promoting light browning.
The step that matters
Spreading the batter in the pan. A thin, even layer cooks through evenly and sets quickly. Too much batter in one spot makes the pancake thick, uneven and slow to set, so it may tear when turned or transferred.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, butter):
- Potatothe original
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, butter. 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.
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