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Flannel Cakes Without Yeast

Flannel cakes are a yeast‑free batter made with buttermilk, wheat flour, butter, salt, and baking soda, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Flannel Cakes Without Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Thicken the buttermilk with wheat flour.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and baking soda.

Cook the cakes

  1. Pour the batter onto a hot griddle or into rings.

  2. Cook until light and spongy.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

  5. Buttermilk + wheattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and butter 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

Buttermilk
Provides liquid and acid that reacts with baking soda to lighten the batter.
Wheat flour
Thickens the buttermilk and gives the cakes their structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acid to release gas, making the cakes rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the batter soon after adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release carbon dioxide bubbles. If the batter stands too long, many bubbles escape before cooking, so the cakes rise less and turn out flatter and denser.

“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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