Skip to main content
Dessert

French Pancakes

A light, airy pancake made with eggs, cream, and butter, cooked quickly and finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
French Pancakes

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 ↓

French Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks, beating them separately.

  2. Whip the cream until stiff.

  3. Combine the egg whites, yolks, and whipped cream.

Fry the pancakes

  1. Heat a little butter in an omelette pan over high heat.

  2. Pour a large spoonful of the mixture into the pan and fry quickly.

Bake and serve

  1. Roll the pancake and place it in the oven at 400°F (200°C) to rise.

  2. Serve very hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air, helping the pancake rise and give it a light, airy structure.
Cream
Whipped cream adds moisture and richness, keeping the pancake tender and light.
Butter
Fat in the pan prevents sticking and adds flavour and golden browning to the surface.

The step that matters

Fry quickly over high heat. A thin, loose batter can scorch on the outside before its centre sets. Frying fast over high heat browns the base while the heat sets the eggs inside, so keep an eye on the pan.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes