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Dessert

Pancakes

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, ginger, brandy, and salt, fried into golden pancakes and served with sugar.

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well, reserving half the whites.

  2. Stir the eggs into the milk.

  3. Mix the flour with a little milk, then gradually add the rest.

  4. Add the ginger, brandy, and salt, and stir well.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Melt butter in a pan, then pour in a ladleful of batter.

  2. Move the pan to spread the batter evenly.

  3. Shake the pan, then flip the pancake when one side is done.

  4. Cook both sides until golden, then drain excess grease before serving.

  5. Sprinkle sugar over the pancakes before serving.

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. Milk + flourtop 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 + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as the pancakes set.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the pancakes body and structure.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and eggs to form a pourable batter with moisture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor while its alcohol evaporates during cooking.

The step that matters

Spread the batter evenly by moving the pan. A thin, even layer of batter cooks through at the same rate and browns uniformly. A thick spot stays raw in the middle or burns at the edge before the rest sets.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, brandy, butter, sugar. 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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Buckwheat 148Rice 104French 71Cornmeal 65Potato 62Cream 36 See all 241 →

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