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Breakfast

Berlin Pancakes

A fluffy pancake made with flour, eggs, milk, and salt, folded with beaten egg whites and fried in butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Berlin Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, sift together the flour and salt.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks and mix them with the milk.

  3. Gradually combine the milk mixture with the flour to form a smooth batter.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter or lard in a large frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom.

  3. Cook until golden brown, then flip and cook the other side.

  4. Serve with marmalade or butter and sugar.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the batter and help the pancakes rise and stay tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pancake together as it sets.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid body and softness.
Butter or lard
Fat in the pan that keeps the pancakes from sticking and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stirring hard or deflating the whipped whites releases the air that lightens the batter, leaving the pancakes dense instead of tender.

“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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