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German Pan Cake

A thin batter pancake made with eggs, flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder, cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

German Pan Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add the powdered sugar, flour, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Mix until combined, then add enough additional flour to achieve a thin batter.

Cook

  1. Preheat a griddle over medium‑high heat and pour batter onto the griddle.

  2. Cook 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Provide structure and richness, setting the pancake as they cook.
Flour
Forms the body of the batter, giving the pancake its structure as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pancake rise and become light.
Powdered sugar
Adds gentle sweetness and helps the pancake brown evenly.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. The griddle must be hot enough to set the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the pancake absorbs moisture and turns pale and soggy. Browning on both sides comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs sufficient heat.

“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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