Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓
New Pancakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Combine the flour and salt in a bowl.
Add the yolks of the eggs one by one, beating each yolk well with a wooden spoon.
Slowly add the cream while stirring continuously.
Fold in the well-whisked whites of three eggs.
Fry and serve
Fry the mixture in butter until golden brown.
Sprinkle with sugar and ground cinnamon, then roll up.
Serve hot with lemon and sugar.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 bind the batter and whites, whisked and folded in, lighten its texture.
- Flour
- Provides structure so the batter holds together when fried.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, making the batter soft and tender.
- Butter
- Fries the pancake, giving it a golden brown surface and rich flavour.
The step that matters
Folding in the whisked egg whites. Whites hold air when whisked; folding gently keeps that air in the batter so the pancakes stay light rather than dense.
Swap the cinnamon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, egg, sugar, butter):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Jalapenofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, egg, sugar, butter. 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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