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Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are batter cakes made with flour, salt, baking powder, sweet milk, and eggs, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and add the whites last.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the dry ingredients and sweet milk.

Cook

  1. Heat a well-oiled griddle and pour batter to form cakes.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, making the cakes rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid and tenderness.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites last. Whipped or beaten whites hold air that gives lift. Folding them in gently at the end, rather than over-mixing, keeps that air in the batter so the cakes stay light.

“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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