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Breakfast

Pan Cakes

A batter of milk, eggs, salt, baking soda, and flour is fried into golden brown cakes.

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

Pan Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine milk, eggs, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Add flour gradually until you achieve a thick batter.

Cook

  1. Heat oil or fat in a pan over medium-high heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot fat and fry until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with sugar and wine or cider.

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

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

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

Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the batter body and holds the pancake's shape.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during cooking, adding structure and richness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, so the pancakes stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the batter to release gas, helping the pancakes rise and lighten.
Oil or fat
Conducts heat to the batter and promotes browning and a crisp, golden surface.

The step that matters

Drop the batter into hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs it instead of searing, giving greasy pancakes that brown slowly and unevenly. Medium-high heat lets the surface set and turn golden quickly.

“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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