Name: Queen's Pancakes
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 1 cup milk, slightly warmed; 2 tablespoons butter, melted; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup all-purpose flour; jam, jelly, or honey for serving; sugar for sprinkling

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Queen's Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat the eggs in a bowl.
Add the warmed milk, melted butter, salt, and flour to the eggs. Mix until smooth.
Heat a griddle over medium heat.

Cook and serve

Pour batter onto the griddle to form pancakes.
Cook until golden brown on both sides.
Spread pancakes lightly with jam, jelly, or honey. Roll up the pancakes, sprinkle with sugar, and serve hot.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + honeytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,336 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + honeytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,327 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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: Bind the batter and add structure as they set on the griddle.
All-purpose flour: Provides the starch and gluten that give the pancakes their body.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor, and helps the pancakes brown.

“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.