Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cream Pancakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Whisk the yolks of three eggs and the whites of two eggs thoroughly.
Add ½ cup of thick cream, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and enough flour to create a good batter.
Incorporate a piece of butter about the size of an egg.
For best results, prepare the batter two to three hours before frying.
Cook
Fry the batter in a pan for five to six minutes.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and tenderness, and help bind the batter.
- Egg whites
- Whisked into the batter to add lightness and help the pancakes rise.
- Thick cream
- Adds fat and moisture, giving a softer, richer texture.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the batter together when fried.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pancakes brown in the pan.
The step that matters
Fry the batter for five to six minutes. Cooking time sets how well the pancakes set and brown. Too short leaves them raw inside, while too long dries them out and darkens them too much.
“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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