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
Mix the baking powder, finely rubbed, and a little salt with the flour.
Stir in enough milk to make a stiff batter.
Once smooth, add the remaining milk and the well-beaten eggs.
Fry the pancakes
Melt a little butter in a frying pan.
Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, making pancakes about ¼ inch thick.
Shake the pan when nearly set.
If the pancake moves freely, turn it over.
Add more butter.
When lightly browned, turn it again.
Slip the pancake onto a hot dish over boiling water.
Roll up each pancake as it is fried.
Serve
Serve immediately with sugar and lemon juice.
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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the batter once mixed with liquid.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set during frying, adding structure and richness.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the pancakes rise and become light.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, turning the mix into a pourable batter.
- Butter
- Fat for frying that helps the pancakes brown and adds flavor.
The step that matters
Make the stiff batter before thinning. Mixing the flour with only enough milk to form a stiff batter first lets you blend in smoothly, avoiding lumps that form when all the liquid goes in at once.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, butter, sugar. 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.
More pancakes recipes
You might also like
Rice Gruel28 recipes
Peptoned Milk Gruel9 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.