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Breakfast

Scotch Pancakes or Drop Scones

A batter of flour, egg, milk, sugar, and salt is cooked on a greased griddle to make Scotch pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Scotch Pancakes or Drop Scones

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg and gradually stir it into the milk.

  3. Combine the egg and milk mixture with the dry ingredients, beating well until smooth. The batter should be thin enough to pour.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour spoonfuls of batter onto a hot greased griddle.

  2. Cook until brown on the bottom, then flip and cook until brown on the other side.

  3. Serve with butter when cooled.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure to the cooked pancakes.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure as its proteins set during cooking.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable liquid base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook on a hot, greased griddle. If the griddle is not hot enough, the pancakes spread and dry out before browning. Sufficient heat sets the batter quickly and gives an even golden surface. Grease prevents sticking.

“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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