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Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are a yeast-leavened pancake made with milk, cornmeal, flour, butter, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald the cornmeal with the milk.

  2. Add the melted butter and white flour.

  3. When the mixture is lukewarm, dissolve the yeast in ¼ cup lukewarm water and add it.

  4. Cover and let rise in a warm place overnight.

Finish and cook

  1. In the morning, add the salt and the egg (yolk and white beaten separately).

  2. Cook on a griddle as you would pancakes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises overnight and gives the cakes a light, airy texture.
Egg
Adds structure and richness; beating the white separately helps lighten the batter.
Cornmeal
Contributes body and a coarser, slightly grainy texture to the cakes.
White flour
Provides gluten structure so the cakes hold together and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, tenderness and a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise overnight in a warm place. Yeast needs warmth and time to ferment the batter; too cool and it rises slowly, too warm and it can over-ferment and turn sour, so the rise should be steady and gentle.

“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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