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French Pancakes

French pancakes made with flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, salt, and filled with fried chopped cold meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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French Pancakes

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 ↓

French Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine flour, baking powder, eggs, salt, and milk in a bowl.

  2. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Heat a griddle over medium-high heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle.

  3. Fry the batter until golden brown on both sides.

Fill and serve

  1. Roll up the pancakes.

  2. Fill the pancakes with chopped cold meat that has been fried in butter.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin pancake together when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, giving the pancakes some lift.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a pourable, tender texture.
Cold meat
Serves as the savoury filling that the rolled pancakes are built around.

The step that matters

Fry the batter until golden brown on both sides. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction and sugars caramelising at the surface. Too little heat leaves the pancake pale and doughy, while too much scorches the outside before the centre sets, so keep the griddle at a steady medium-high heat and flip once the surface has set.

“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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