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Dessert

French Pancakes

A sweet pancake made with rice or all-purpose flour, butter, sugar, milk or cream, lemon juice, eggs, and jam.

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

Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolk with a little flour.

  2. Add the remaining flour, milk, and lemon juice.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white.

  4. Pour the batter into greased tins.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until risen, brown, and firm, about 10 minutes.

  2. Turn onto sugared paper, add hot jam, and sandwich two rounds together.

  3. Pile on a hot dish and dust with powdered sugar.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites give the batter lift and an airy, light structure as the pancakes set.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the batter together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness and helps the pancakes brown.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Milk or cream
Supplies liquid and fat that moisten the batter and add richness.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped whites. Stirring hard would deflate the foam, leaving the pancakes flat and dense instead of risen and light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, butter, sugar, milk, egg. 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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