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Apple Pancakes

A batter of flour, milk, eggs, cinnamon, lemon peel, currants, and apples, fried into pancakes and served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour and milk in a bowl until smooth.

  2. Add eggs, cinnamon, lemon peel, currants, and chopped apples; mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan and fry until golden on both sides.

  3. Serve hot, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 set into a firm, tender structure as the pancakes cook.
Flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the batter together while it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it spreads and cooks through evenly.
Apples
Add moisture, sweetness and fruity bulk, softening as the pancakes cook.

The step that matters

Fry until golden on both sides. Medium heat lets the pancakes brown through to the centre without scorching. Too hot and the outside burns while the eggs and apple pieces stay raw inside; too cool and the batter steams and turns pale and soggy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, cinnamon, lemon, apple, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, cinnamon, lemon, apple, butter. 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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