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Dessert

Leipzeger Pancakes

A sweet pancake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, cream, butter, yeast, wine spirits, and flour, filled with jam and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Leipzeger Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks together until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the pounded sugar, warmed cream, clarified butter, yeast, and spirits of wine.

  3. Mix in enough sifted flour to create a thick batter.

  4. Let the batter rise for 30 minutes.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the batter thinly and cut into rounds or oblong pieces.

  2. Place jam or marmalade on half of the pieces, fold them over, and let them rise again.

  3. Fry the filled pancakes in boiling lard or butter 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, giving a tender, custard-like crumb.
Egg whites
Add lift and structure to the batter as it cooks.
Fresh yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise and gives the pancakes a light texture.
Clarified butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the pancakes brown in the frying fat.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the batter.
Pounded loaf sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the crust brown when fried.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise for 30 minutes. Yeast needs time to produce gas; a short or skipped rise leaves the pancakes dense. The second rise after filling also helps them puff and stay light when fried.

“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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