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American Pancakes

A thin batter pancake made with eggs, flour, milk, and butter, cooked on a skillet.

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 ↓

American Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the yolks of 4 eggs and the whites of 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons of water.

  2. Add ¼ teaspoon of salt and gradually mix in 6 heaped tablespoons of flour until smooth.

  3. Add enough milk to create a thin batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt 1 egg-sized piece of butter in a skillet without browning it.

  2. Pour in enough batter to thinly cover the pan and let it cook until it stiffens.

  3. Loosen the edges and shake the pan to prevent sticking.

  4. Flip the pancake to brown both sides, then serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Yolks and whites provide structure and richness, setting the thin batter as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the starch and gluten network that gives the pancake its body.
Milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture.
Butter
Greases the skillet and adds richness and flavour to the pancake.

The step that matters

Flip the pancake to brown both sides. The pancake must be set enough to lift without tearing, but the second side needs enough heat to brown. Browning depends on the Maillard reaction, which needs dry surface heat, so a pan that is too cool yields pale, soft pancakes.

“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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