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Dessert

Flannel Cakes

Flannel Cakes are a light, fluffy batter made with milk, flour, salt, and eggs, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, milk, and salt until smooth.

  2. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks.

  3. Add the yolks to the mixture.

Fold in the whites

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Fold the egg whites into the batter.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle.

  2. Pour the batter onto the griddle.

  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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the cakes their body and structure.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and keeps the batter pourable.
Eggs
Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air for lift; yolks add richness and fat.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. The whites are full of trapped air that makes the cakes light. Stirring vigorously deflates them, so fold gently and only until no white streaks remain, then cook promptly so the lift is kept.

“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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