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Dessert

Pancakes a LA Eranqaise

Pancakes made with butter, ratafia, lemon zest, sugar, eggs, milk, cream, and orange flower water, served with a sauce of orange flower water, sugar, ratafia, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pancakes a LA Eranqaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter over low heat in a saucepan.

  2. Add the pounded ratafia, lemon zest, and powdered sugar; mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the 3 eggs and add the yolks of 3 more eggs one at a time, mixing well.

  4. Combine the egg mixture with the butter mixture, then add the milk, cream, and orange flower water; beat until thick.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat clarified butter in a pan, pour it in, and add the batter to make thin pancakes.

  2. After frying, leave 1 tablespoon of batter in the pan.

  3. To the remaining batter, add orange flower water, sugar, pounded ratafia, and egg yolk; mix with some cream.

  4. Serve the sauce in a boat alongside the 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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 enrich it, giving the pancakes structure and a tender set.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the pancakes brown and feel tender.
Milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency, hydrating the flour-free mixture for thin pancakes.
Cream
Adds fat and body, making the batter and sauce richer and smoother.
Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the pancakes brown lightly in the pan.

The step that matters

Heating the clarified butter before pouring the batter. The pan must be hot enough for the thin batter to set quickly and release cleanly; if it is too cool, the pancakes stick and tear.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, sugar, egg, milk, cream, sauce):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, sugar, egg, milk, cream, sauce. 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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