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Pancakes

A simple batter of flour, milk, eggs, and butter cooked in lard and served with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pancakes

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 ↓

Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Whip the eggs until light.

  2. Mix the eggs with the milk.

  3. Add the flour and butter, and beat for one minute.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan until it hisses.

  2. Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom thinly.

  3. Cook quickly until the batter is set.

  4. Turn the pancake with a spatula or toss it if you're skilled.

Finish and serve

  1. Sprinkle with sugar, roll up smoothly, and sift more sugar on top.

  2. Serve 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. 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

Eggs
Whipping adds air and they bind the batter, giving the pancakes structure once set.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that set and give the pancake its body.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and keeps the batter thin and moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Cook quickly until the batter is set. The pan must be hot enough that the thin batter sets fast. A slow cook lets it dry out and toughen or stick before it can be turned cleanly.

“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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