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Butter-milk Pancakes

A simple pancake made with flour, buttermilk, egg, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Butter-milk Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg.

  3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat and lightly grease it.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook until golden brown.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 main structure once its proteins hydrate and set during cooking.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that give the pancakes a tender crumb and flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acidity to release gas that makes the pancakes rise.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes pancakes tough and chewy. Lumps are fine and should be left in the batter.

“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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