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Dessert

Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are a light, fluffy pancake-like dish made with flour, eggs, milk, butter, salt, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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. Rub the butter into the flour and add the salt.

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light, then mix in the milk.

  3. Stir the milk mixture into the flour until smooth.

  4. Beat the egg whites until light and fold them into the batter.

  5. Add the baking powder and mix gently.

Cook

  1. Cook on a hot griddle until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 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. 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. 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once combined with liquid.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten its texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable, moist consistency.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and contributes to flavour.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that lightens the batter. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving dense cakes, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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