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Dessert

Pikelets

Pikelets are small pancakes made from flour, milk, egg, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and greased with mutton suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Pikelets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour and nearly all of the milk.

  2. Add a well-beaten egg and the sugar, mixing well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the remaining milk and add it to the batter.

  4. Finally, mix in the cream of tartar.

Cook

  1. Grease a griddle with mutton suet or use a greased baking sheet on the stove.

  2. Cook the batter on the griddle until golden brown.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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 structure of the batter once it is mixed with liquid.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure to the pikelets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that makes the pikelets rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts with the baking soda to create lift and gives the batter a slight tang.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pikelets brown on the griddle.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and adding the cream of tartar. Baking soda and cream of tartar react as soon as they meet liquid, so the batter should be cooked promptly after the cream of tartar is mixed in. Waiting too long lets the gas escape and the pikelets come out flatter.

“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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