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Currant Pancakes

A sweet pancake made with milk, lemon, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, brandy, and dried currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,057 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Currant Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine the lemon rind and milk in a saucepan and let it sit by the fire to infuse the flavor.

  2. Once infused, add the butter and sugar to the milk, melt the butter, then set the milk aside to cool.

  3. In a bowl, mix the flour with the beaten eggs and water until smooth, then add a pinch of salt and the brandy.

  4. Stir in the cooled milk mixture until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a little butter or lard in a frying pan until hot, then pour in enough batter to cover the bottom thinly.

  2. Sprinkle a few dried currants over the batter, loosen the edges, and cook until browned on both sides.

  3. Serve with a sprinkle of sugar and a drizzle of lemon juice.

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. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set the thin pancake structure as they cook.
Flour
Provides the body and structure that holds the pancake together.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that thins the batter and adds moisture and tenderness.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the pancake brown in the pan.
Dried currants
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chewy fruit flavor.

The step that matters

Cooking the thin batter. Pouring just enough batter to thinly cover the hot, greased pan lets the pancake set quickly and brown evenly. A pan that is too cool or too much batter makes it tear and cook unevenly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, butter, sugar, flour, egg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, butter, sugar, flour, egg, brandy. 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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