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Dessert

Flour Pancakes with Sugar Syrup

A simple pancake recipe served with sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Flour Pancakes with Sugar Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together milk, egg, and melted butter.

  3. Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and grease lightly.

  2. Pour batter onto skillet, cooking until bubbles form, then flip and cook until golden.

  3. Serve warm with sugar syrup.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pancake together as it cooks.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter set and bind.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid base and tenderness.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and tenderness, and helps the pancakes brown.

The step that matters

Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed. Stirring only until no dry flour remains keeps gluten development limited, so the pancakes stay tender rather than tough and chewy.

“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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