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Breakfast

Pancakes

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, ginger, and salt is fried into golden pancakes and served with sugar.

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

Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and half the egg whites together.

  2. Stir the mixture into the quart of milk.

  3. Mix a little flour with some milk, then gradually add the rest of the milk.

  4. Add the beaten ginger and salt, and stir well.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in a pan, then pour in a ladleful of batter.

  2. Move the pan to spread the batter evenly.

  3. Shake the pan, and when one side is golden, flip the pancake.

  4. Cook until both sides are golden, then place on a dish.

  5. Drain excess grease and sprinkle with sugar before serving.

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. Milk + flourtop 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 + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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

Eggs
Yolks and whites add richness and structure, helping the pancakes hold together while cooking.
Flour
Starch forms the body of the batter, giving the pancakes their structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid that turns the batter into a pourable mixture and adds moisture.
Butter
Fat in the pan helps the pancake brown evenly and gives a golden surface.

The step that matters

Flipping the pancake. Flip only once the underside is golden and set, because flipping too early can tear the pancake. Browning on the first side sets the structure for the second.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, butter, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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