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Breakfast

New England Pancakes

A batter of flour, milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and flavoring is fried into thin pancakes and served hot with sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

New England Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour smoothly with a little cold milk.

  2. Gradually add the cream, salt, egg yolks, egg whites, sugar, and flavoring.

  3. Let the batter stand for 1 hour.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the batter in thin pancakes.

  2. Sprinkle each pancake with sifted sugar and powdered cinnamon, then roll it up.

  3. 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.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Fine flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin pancakes together when fried.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter for a tender, custardy texture.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the pancakes puff slightly when cooked.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the pancakes a richer, softer texture.
Milk
Thins the batter and hydrates the flour so it spreads evenly.

The step that matters

Mix the flour smoothly with the cold milk first. Stirring the flour into a small amount of liquid before adding the rest prevents lumps, because dry flour clumps when it meets a lot of liquid at once. A smooth base gives an even batter that cooks into thin, uniform pancakes.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, cream, egg, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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