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Breakfast

Pancakes

A batter of apples, eggs, flour, and milk is cooked into thin pancakes, served hot with optional sugar, apricot preserve, or clotted cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pancakes

Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely mince the apples and set aside.

  2. In a bowl, mix eggs, flour, and milk to create a batter.

Cook

  1. Heat a pan over medium heat and grease it with butter.

  2. Pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom thinly.

  3. Cook until the pancake is set, then serve hot.

Serve

  1. Optionally, layer pancakes with sugar or spread with apricot preserve and roll them up.

  2. Serve with clotted cream if desired.

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. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Milk + buttertop 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. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main filling and flavour, adding moisture and a fruity sweetness to the pancake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pancake structure as it cooks.
Flour
Gives the batter body so the pancake holds together when cooked.
Milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Pour the batter thinly. A thin layer of batter cooks through evenly and sets quickly, while a thick pour can stay wet in the middle and resist turning or rolling.

Swap the apricot

The recipe marks apricot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, egg, flour, milk, butter, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, egg, flour, milk, butter, sugar, cream. 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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