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Dessert

Flannel Cakes

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Make the batter

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

  2. Separate the eggs. Add the unbeaten yolks to the flour and gradually mix in the milk.

  3. Beat to a smooth batter.

Fold and cook

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Add the melted butter to the batter, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Cook on a hot griddle.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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 structure that holds the cakes together as they cook.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and binding; whipped whites lighten the batter for a tender texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, causing the cakes to rise and become light.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour and helps browning on the griddle.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten stiff, and overmixing deflates them. Gentle folding keeps the trapped air, which gives the cakes their lift and a light, tender crumb.

“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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