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Pancakes with Preserves

A batter of flour, milk, eggs, and butter is fried into pancakes, then rolled with jam or jelly and dusted with powdered sugar.

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

Pancakes with Preserves

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light, then add salt and 2 cups of milk.

  2. Gradually mix in the flour and beaten egg whites alternately, thinning with more milk until the batter is quite thin.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat 1 tablespoon of butter or lard in a small frying pan until hot but not discolored.

  2. Pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom and fry quickly, pouring off excess fat as soon as the cakes set.

  3. Turn the pancake using a spatula and a quick toss of the pan.

  4. As each pancake is done, place it on a hot plate, spread with jam or jelly, and roll it up neatly.

  5. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and keep in a warm oven until ready to serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Provides the structure that holds the thin batter together when cooked.
Eggs
Egg whites add lift and structure, while yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture for a tender cake.
Butter or sweet lard
Fat for frying that adds flavor and helps the pancakes brown and release from the pan.

The step that matters

Fry quickly over moderate heat in hot fat. Pouring batter into hot fat sets the outside fast, so the cakes stay thin and tender. Pouring off excess fat as they set keeps them from becoming greasy.

“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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