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Pancakes

A light, thin pancake made with egg yolks, whites, cream, cinnamon, lemon, sugar, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pancakes

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately, then strain into the cream.

  2. Pound the cinnamon and lemon with the sugar, mix with the clarified butter, and beat together.

  3. Add the flour and mix until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour thin pancakes into a hot, buttered pan, one at a time, until all are cooked. No additional butter is needed after the first pancake.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter while giving a tender, custardy texture.
Egg whites
Whipped separately and folded in, they add lightness and help the pancakes rise.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, giving the pancakes a soft, tender crumb.
Flour
Provides structure so the thin pancakes hold together when cooked.
Clarified butter
Adds fat and flavor and helps the pancakes brown without burning.

The step that matters

Pour thin pancakes into a hot, buttered pan. The pan must be hot enough to set the thin batter quickly and brown it lightly. If it is too cool, the pancakes absorb fat, turn greasy, and tear when flipped.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, cinnamon, sugar, butter, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, cinnamon, sugar, butter, flour. 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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