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Breakfast

New England Pancakes

A fluffy pancake made with cream, flour, eggs, and a pinch of salt, fried in butter and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

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 ↓

New England Pancakes

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 a skillet over medium heat and add fresh butter.

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

  3. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon between each pancake as you stack them.

  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

Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pancakes a tender, soft crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure so the batter sets as the pancakes cook.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter smoothly.
Egg whites
Add lift and structure, helping the thin pancakes stay light.

The step that matters

Pour a thin layer of batter into the skillet and fry until golden brown. A thin layer cooks evenly and sets quickly, while too much batter stays raw in the centre. Golden brown colour comes from browning of the sugars and proteins on the surface, so the heat should be steady enough to brown the pancake without burning it before the inside sets.

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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