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Dessert

Leipzeger Pancakes

A German-style pancake made with egg whites, yolks, sugar, cream, butter, yeast, wine spirits, and flour, filled with jam and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Leipzeger Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks together until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, warmed cream, clarified butter, yeast, and spirits of wine.

  3. Mix in enough sifted flour to create a thick batter.

  4. Let the batter rise for 30 minutes.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the batter thinly and cut into rounds or oblong pieces.

  2. Place jam or marmalade on half of each piece, fold over, and let rise again.

  3. Fry the pancakes in boiling lard or butter until golden brown.

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. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

Egg yolks and whites
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set and hold its shape when fried.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise, giving the pancakes a light, airy texture.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the thick batter its body and structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancakes brown during frying.
Clarified butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness and flavor to the dough.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling fat. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the pancakes absorb grease and turn heavy before a golden crust forms.

“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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