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Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are light, fluffy pancakes made with eggs, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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. Beat the yolks of the eggs and butter until creamy.

  2. Add the sweet milk, flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them into the batter.

Cook

  1. Preheat a greased griddle over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour batter to form cakes.

  3. 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. 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. Egg + buttertop 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites add air that makes the cakes light and tender.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it reacts in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become fluffy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb, and helps the batter brown on the griddle.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten stiff, and overmixing or stirring vigorously when folding deflates them. Gentle folding keeps the air bubbles intact so the cakes rise light instead of flat and dense.

“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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