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Dessert

Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are a batter-based cake made with sour milk, eggs, flour, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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. In a bowl, combine sour milk and the beaten egg yolks.

  2. Gradually add flour until you achieve a good batter consistency.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in a little water and add it to the batter along with salt.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle over medium‑high heat and pour batter to form cakes.

  2. 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. Egg + flourtop 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cakes rise and turn tender.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in, add lightness and structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the cakes lift. Stirring vigorously knocks that air out, leaving dense, flat cakes, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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