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French Pancakes

A yeasted pancake made with flour, milk, butter, sugar, salt, yeast, and eggs, baked on a skillet or griddle.

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

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 ↓

French Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Stir together the flour, milk, melted butter, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.

  2. Dissolve the compressed yeast in a little warm water.

  3. Add the dissolved yeast to the mixture.

  4. Let the batter rise overnight for breakfast, or about 3 hours for lunch or supper.

  5. Add the beaten eggs to the batter and mix well.

  6. Let the batter stand for about 20 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Bake the batter in a skillet or on a griddle, forming large round cakes.

  2. While baking, butter each pancake and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Roll the pancakes up or stack them on a plate.

  4. Serve hot with 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 of the batter and sets as the pancakes cook.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure to the cooked pancakes.
Yeast
Produces gas during the long rise, giving the batter lightness and a slightly tangy flavor.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and helps the pancakes brown.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the cakes brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas for the batter to become airy. Rising overnight or for about 3 hours gives the lift the recipe depends on, so rushing this step leaves the pancakes 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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