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Dessert

Flannel Cakes

A batter of butter, milk, eggs, yeast, and flour is risen and fried on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in a pint of hot milk.

  2. Add a pint of cold milk.

  3. Add 4 beaten eggs.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon salt.

  5. Add 2 tablespoons yeast.

  6. Add enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  7. Set the batter in a warm place for 3 hours to rise.

Cook

  1. Fry the batter on a griddle.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Add richness and structure to the batter as they set during cooking.
Yeast
Produces gas during the rise, making the batter light and airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the batter its body and holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and makes up the batter's moisture.

The step that matters

Set the batter in a warm place for 3 hours to rise. Yeast needs time and warmth to ferment and produce gas. Under-rising leaves the cakes dense, while the batter must still be stiff enough to hold its shape.

“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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