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Preserve

French Pancakes

A light batter of eggs, butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, and milk cooked into pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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French Pancakes

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

French Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter and let it cool slightly.

  2. Whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the melted butter and milk to the egg mixture, stirring to combine.

  4. Mix the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour a small amount of batter into the skillet. Cook until bubbles form on the surface.

  3. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor to the pancakes.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the pancakes as its starches set when cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown to a golden color.
Milk
Adds moisture, loosening the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients gradually. Adding flour to wet ingredients in stages and mixing until smooth prevents lumps. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the pancakes tough, so stop once the batter is smooth.

“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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