Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Pancakes Without Eggs
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix the flour with the ale and beat the batter for 15 minutes.
Fry and stack
Melt the dripping or lard in a small frying pan.
Pour in one quarter of the batter and fry both sides until pale brown.
Stack the pancakes with 2 teaspoons of moist sugar sprinkled between each.
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.
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dried flour
- Provides the starch and structure that hold the batter together as it cooks.
- Mild ale
- Adds liquid and its carbonation helps lighten the batter.
- Dripping or lard
- Fat for frying that conducts heat and browns the pancake surface.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture to the pancakes stacked with it.
The step that matters
Frying the pancakes. The fat must be hot before the batter goes in so the pancake sets quickly and browns evenly. Batter poured into cool fat soaks up grease and sticks to the pan.
“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
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Rice Gruel28 recipes
Peptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes