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Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are griddle cakes made with sour milk, sour cream, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add sour milk or buttermilk, sour cream, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.

  3. Stir in enough flour to make a batter similar to ordinary griddle cakes and beat until smooth.

  4. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake on a hot griddle and serve with butter and 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.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Yolks add richness and egg whites, folded in, lighten the batter for a tender texture.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise and stay tender.
Sour cream
Adds fat and acidity, giving the batter moisture and a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the cakes rise and become light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic dairy to produce gas, aiding rise and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as the cakes set.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites trap air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact; beating or stirring hard would deflate the batter and leave the cakes dense.

“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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