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Dessert

French Pancakes

A sweet, thin pancake made with eggs, milk, flour, sugar, salt, and olive oil, baked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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French Pancakes

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 ↓

French Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs until thick and lemon colored.

  2. Mix the sugar and salt with the flour, then add the milk and flour alternately, incorporating each addition before adding the next.

  3. Stir the olive oil into the mixture, then carefully fold in the well-beaten egg whites.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake in a waffle iron like griddle cakes.

  2. Butter them.

  3. Dust with powdered sugar.

  4. Roll up.

  5. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,828 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in, add lightness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin batter together when cooked.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the crêpes their moisture.
Olive oil
Adds fat that keeps the crêpes tender and helps prevent sticking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crêpes brown lightly during cooking.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air that gives lift, so they must be well beaten and folded gently. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving the crêpes dense and flat.

“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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