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Breakfast

Pancakes — Continued

A batter of milk, flour, salt, ammonia, and optional cream is fried and served with sugar, honey, or molasses, with optional ginger cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine thick milk, thin milk, salt, ammonia, and enough flour to make a batter.

  2. Add cream for a richer flavor.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter in a pan and pour in spoonfuls of batter to fry.

  2. Serve hot with sugar, honey, or molasses.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix cream, sugar, and ground ginger for sauce, and serve with pancakes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + honeytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its body.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter, setting as the pancakes cook.
Ammonia
Acts as a leavening agent, releasing gas that lifts the batter.
Cream
Adds fat for a richer flavor and a softer, more tender texture.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the pancake surface and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Heat the butter before frying. The pan needs to be hot enough before the batter goes in. A hot surface sets the outside quickly so the pancake holds its shape and browns evenly, while a cool pan lets the batter spread and soak up excess butter.

“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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