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Breakfast

Cream Pancakes

A light pancake made with egg yolks, cream, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the egg yolks with the cream and sugar.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a griddle and pour the mixture to form thin pancakes.

  2. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Serve hot, sprinkled with grated sugar.

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

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter so the thin pancakes hold together.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving the pancakes a tender, soft texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. Sugar and dairy brown quickly, so the surface can darken before the centre sets. Medium heat and a thin layer let the pancake cook through before it burns.

“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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