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Pancakes

A spiced, cream-based pancake made with egg yolks, cream, sugar, spices, lard, ginger, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Pancakes

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the yolks of the eggs with the cream, sugar, cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Rub a pan with lard and heat it.

  2. Pour in a ladleful of batter to make a thin pancake, moving the pan to spread it evenly.

  3. When the underside is golden, flip the pancake carefully.

  4. Once cooked, place it in a dish and continue with the remaining batter.

Serve

  1. Sprinkle sugar over the pancakes before serving.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the batter and add richness and structure to the thin pancakes.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, giving the pancakes a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancake surface brown as it cooks.

The step that matters

Flipping the pancake. A thin pancake is fragile and sets only partly at first. Wait until the underside is golden so it holds together, then turn it carefully to avoid tearing.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, brandy):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, brandy. 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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