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Breakfast

Very Rich Pancakes

A buttery, sweet pancake made with cream, eggs, brandy, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Very Rich Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl using your hands.

  2. Gradually add the cream or milk and loaf sugar, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the brandy or ratafia.

  4. Mix the eggs with the flour, salt, and nutmeg until smooth.

  5. Combine the egg mixture with the butter mixture and mix thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a clean frying pan and rub it with butter, but do not add any fat.

  2. Pour batter into the hot pan and fry the pancakes on one side only.

  3. Stack the pancakes with sugar sprinkled between each layer.

  4. Transfer the pancakes to a serving dish with the browned side facing up.

  5. Garnish with slices of lemon around the dish.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creamed with the sugar base, it adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Eggs
Beaten eggs provide structure and set the pancakes as they cook.
Fine flour
Forms the starch-and-protein framework that gives the pancakes body.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and fat, making the batter softer and more tender.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancakes brown lightly on the cooked side.

The step that matters

Fry on one side only in a hot, lightly buttered pan. A properly hot pan sets the underside quickly so the pancake holds together and browns. If the pan is too cool, the batter spreads and sticks before it can set.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, sugar, egg, brandy, flour. 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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