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Dessert

French Pancakes

A sweet batter of butter, eggs, flour, powdered sugar, and milk baked into thin pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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French Pancakes

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

French Pancakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy.

  3. Blend the eggs with the creamed butter.

  4. Add the flour and powdered sugar, mixing well.

  5. Gradually add milk until the mixture is as thick as cream.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and grease tin plates.

  2. Pour the batter onto the plates and bake for a few minutes.

  3. Serve stacked on a dish with cut lemon and sifted sugar, or layer with preserves.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provide structure and lift as they set, and bind the batter into a cohesive mixture.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, carrying flavour through the batter.
Fine flour
Forms the structure that holds the pancakes together as they bake.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves smoothly into it, adding tenderness.
Milk
Adds moisture and thins the batter to a pourable, cream-like consistency.

The step that matters

Gradually add milk until the mixture is as thick as cream. Adding milk too quickly can thin the batter unevenly and make it hard to control its thickness. Adding it slowly lets you stop at the right consistency, so the pancakes spread and set evenly on the plates.

“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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