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Rye Pan Cakes

A fried batter made with rye flour, molasses, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rye Pan Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, molasses, sour milk, wheat flour, egg, and baking soda.

  2. Stir in enough rye flour to make a thick batter.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

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. Wheat + ryetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the pancakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the pancakes rise and stay light.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, aiding browning in the pan.
Rye flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pancakes their characteristic earthy flavor.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown on both sides. The batter must be hot enough to brown quickly without burning, and the pancakes need to cook through. Browning comes from sugars and proteins reacting under heat, so flipping only once the underside is set helps keep them intact.

“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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