Skip to main content
Main

Flannel Cakes

Flannel Cakes are a batter-based pancake-like dish made with butter, milk, eggs, flour, yeast, baking soda, and tartaric acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in the milk and let it cool.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until light.

  3. Stir the eggs into the cooled milk mixture alternately with the flour.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the batter.

  5. Dissolve the tartaric acid in a little water and add it just before baking.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the batter on a griddle like buckwheat cakes, buttering them before serving.

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. 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. Milk + flourtop 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it cooks.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its moisture.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer texture and rich flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, which lifts the batter.
Tartaric acid
Acid that reacts with the baking soda to make the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Add the tartaric acid just before baking. The acid and baking soda release carbon dioxide gas as soon as they meet. If the batter stands too long, the bubbles escape before cooking sets the structure, so the cakes rise less.

“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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes