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 together the potato starch, eggs, powdered sugar, and a little water in a bowl.
Add enough milk to achieve a porridge-like consistency.
Cook and serve
Butter the inside of a frying pan and heat it over medium heat.
Pour a large spoonful of batter into the pan, spreading it over the surface.
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, soft texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set during cooking to give the pancakes structure.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a porridge-like consistency.
The step that matters
Cook until the pancake is done. Egg-rich batter sets as its proteins firm with heat, so cooking over medium heat until set keeps the pancake from tearing or staying wet in the middle when turned or lifted.
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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