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Breakfast

Pancakes

A simple batter of flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, egg, and butter cooked on a skillet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pancakes

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together milk, egg, and melted butter.

  3. Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.

Cook

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and grease lightly.

  2. Pour batter onto the skillet and cook until bubbles form, then flip and cook 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the pancake together as it sets.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the pancake set and hold together.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid base and tenderness.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps browning in the skillet.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during cooking.

The step that matters

Combine wet and dry ingredients until just mixed. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes pancakes tough and chewy. A few lumps are fine and keep the texture tender.

“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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