Skip to main content
Dessert

Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are small pancakes made with milk, eggs, butter, flour, salt, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Separate the eggs. Beat the yolks and mix in the milk.

  3. Stir the milk mixture into the flour and beat well.

  4. Add the melted butter and fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook the cakes

  1. Scoop 1 tablespoon of batter for each cake.

  2. Fry on a greased griddle until bubbles form, then turn.

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. Egg + buttertop 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
Yolks add richness and the beaten whites lighten the batter for a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid base and moisture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb, and helps prevent sticking.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding rather than stirring keeps the whites' trapped air intact, which gives the cakes lift and a light, airy texture.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes