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Pancakes, New England

A pancake recipe using cream, flour, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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, New England

serves 6 to 8 pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cream, flour, egg yolks, egg whites, and salt until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat fresh butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Pour a thin layer of batter into the skillet and fry until golden brown.

  3. Sprinkle sugar and powdered cinnamon between every two pancakes.

  4. Serve 6 to 8 pancakes at once.

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.

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

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon 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 the batter set tender with a custard-like softness.
Egg whites
Add lift and structure so the thin pancakes hold together when cooked.
Fine flour
Provides the starch that gives the batter body and structure as it cooks.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the pancakes tender and rich.
Fresh butter
Adds flavor and fat to the skillet, helping the pancakes brown and release.

The step that matters

Pour a thin layer of batter and fry until golden brown. A thin layer cooks quickly and evenly, while heat that is too high browns the outside before the center sets, leaving the pancake raw or tearing it when flipped.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, egg, 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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