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 ↓
Pancakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Boil the cream and pour it over the butter; stir until melted.
Let the mixture cool slightly, then beat in the egg yolks and egg whites.
Gradually mix in the flour and keep the batter warm for an hour.
Cook and serve
Grease a pan with the fat wrapped in muslin.
Set the pan over hot ashes and pour in the batter, making it as thin as possible.
Do not turn the pancakes; serve them stacked with pounded sugar and your choice of flavor.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, giving the batter a tender, soft texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat, which contributes richness and a tender crumb to the pancakes.
- Egg yolks
- Add fat and emulsifiers that enrich the batter and help bind it smoothly.
- Egg whites
- Add structure and lightness, helping the thin pancakes set as they cook.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the thin pancakes together as they set.
The step that matters
Set the pan over hot ashes and pour the batter thinly. The pan must be hot enough to set the thin batter quickly, and the batter must be spread very thin so the pancakes cook through evenly without becoming thick or doughy.
“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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