Name: Flannel Cakes
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 1 quart sour milk; ½ teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; flour to make a thin batter; 1 handful Graham flour or cornmeal

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, beat the eggs and sour milk together.
Add baking soda, salt, and enough flour to create a thin batter.
Stir in the Graham flour or cornmeal.

Cook and serve

Preheat a griddle over medium‑high heat.
Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown.
Serve immediately with maple syrup.

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.

Milk + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour 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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Sour milk: Provides liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the cakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the cakes rise.
Flour: Forms the gluten and starch structure that sets the batter into cakes.
Graham flour or cornmeal: Adds coarser texture and nutty flavor to the cakes.

“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.