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Dessert

Pancakes a LA Francaise

A French-style pancake served with a sauce of orange flower water, sugar, ratafia, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pancakes a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then add the pounded ratafia, lemon rind, and sugar.

  2. Mix in the egg yolks one at a time, then add the milk, cream, and orange flower water.

  3. Beat the mixture until it reaches the thickness of a good cream.

Fry the pancakes

  1. Heat clarified butter in a pan, then pour it out and add the batter for the pancakes, making them very thin.

  2. After frying the pancakes, leave 1 tablespoon of batter in the pan.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add orange flower water, sugar, pounded ratafia, and egg yolk to the batter, mixing in some cream.

  2. Serve the sauce in a boat alongside the pancakes.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the batter and enrich it, giving the pancakes structure and a custardy richness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the batter a tender texture and a rich flavour.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, making the batter and sauce smooth and rich.
Milk
Thins the batter and adds moisture so the pancakes can be spread very thin.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the butter and cream.

The step that matters

Making the pancakes very thin. A thin batter spreads into a delicate layer that sets quickly in hot fat. If the batter is too thick or the pan is not hot enough, the pancakes turn out heavy and may tear when turned.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, sugar, egg, milk, cream, sauce):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, sugar, egg, milk, cream, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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