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Dessert

Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are batter pancakes made with sour milk or sour cream, eggs, baking soda, and flour, folded with beaten egg whites.

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 ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk or sour cream with melted butter.

  2. Add the eggs and baking soda, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add flour until you achieve a batter consistency.

  4. Beat the egg whites separately until light and fluffy, then gently fold them into the batter.

Cook

  1. Cook on a griddle 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 + buttertop 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

Sour milk or sour cream
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise and gives a tangy flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and whipped whites lighten the batter for a fluffy texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk or cream to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the cakes their body and structure.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor, and helps browning on the griddle.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped; overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates them, so the cakes turn dense instead of light and fluffy. Fold gently with a spatula.

“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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