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Breakfast

Irish Pancakes

A thin pancake made with eggs, cream, butter, flour, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Irish Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites together.

  2. Strain the mixture into a pint of cream.

  3. Add grated nutmeg and sugar to taste.

  4. Melt the butter in a pan and pour it into the warm cream mixture.

  5. Mix in the flour until smooth.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the pancakes very thin, using a bit of butter for the first one only.

  2. Serve the pancakes stacked on top of each other.

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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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
Add richness and help bind the batter and set the pancakes.
Egg whites
Add lightness and structure to the batter.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pancakes a tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, and helps the pancakes brown and release from the pan.
Flour
Provides structure so the thin pancakes hold together.

The step that matters

Fry the pancakes very thin. A thin layer of batter cooks quickly and evenly, while a thick one stays wet in the centre and can tear when flipped. Keeping the pan lightly buttered only for the first pancake avoids greasy, over-fried edges.

“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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