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Dessert

French Pancakes

A light, sweet batter made with eggs, milk, sugar, flour, lemon, and rose water, fried into thin pancakes.

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

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

French Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs.

  2. In a bowl, beat the yolks with the sugar and flour.

  3. Add the cream or milk, grated lemon peel, lemon juice, and rose water. Mix well.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Use 3 tablespoons of the batter for each pancake.

  2. Fry the pancakes in a skillet until golden brown.

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.

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.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Whites trapped in the batter give the pancakes lightness and a delicate rise.
Flour
Starch sets during cooking, giving the pancakes structure so they hold together.
Cream or milk
Liquid that thins the batter and adds richness and moisture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancakes brown in the skillet.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding rather than stirring keeps the air whipped into the whites, which is what lifts the batter. Overmixing knocks out that air and leaves dense pancakes.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sugar, flour, rose):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, flour, rose. 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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