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Dessert

French Pancakes

A batter of eggs, butter, sugar, flour, and milk baked into thin pancakes served with lemon, sugar, preserves, or marmalade.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a basin.

  2. Add the butter and cream it.

  3. Stir in the sugar and flour.

  4. Add the milk and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture onto buttered plates.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve with lemon and sifted sugar, or with layers of preserve or marmalade.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a firm structure as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it adds tenderness to the crêpes.
Flour
Provides the starch that gives the crêpes their body and structure.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that thins the batter and turns to steam while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Add the milk and mix well. Flour needs to be fully blended into the liquid to avoid lumps. Thorough mixing gives a smooth batter that spreads evenly and cooks to a uniform texture.

“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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