Name: Bread Crumb Pancakes
Ingredients: 2 cups stale bread crumbs; 1 egg, beaten; 1 cup all-purpose flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; milk (enough to make a thin batter); 1½ teaspoons baking powder (if using sweet milk); Cornmeal (optional, in place of flour)

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Bread Crumb Pancakes

Ingredients

2 cups stale bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
milk (enough to make a thin batter)
1½ teaspoons baking powder (if using sweet milk)
Cornmeal (optional, in place of flour)

Directions

Crumb the stale bread as fine as possible.
Pour enough milk over the crumbs to cover them and let soak for several hours or overnight.
Beat the soaked bread crumbs smooth.
For every 2 cups of bread crumbs, add 1 beaten egg, 1 cup of flour, and ¼ teaspoon of salt.
Add enough milk to make a thin batter.
If using sweet milk, sift 1½ teaspoons of baking powder with the flour.
You can substitute cornmeal for the flour if desired.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cornbread345 recipes

Bread Pudding336 recipes

Nut Bread109 recipes

Wheat Bread65 recipes

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Bread Crumb Pancakes