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Dessert

Pancakes and Fritters

A batter of unfermented wheat flour, cream, sugar, and eggs is fried in lard or sweet dripping to make pancakes or fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pancakes and Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix unfermented wheat flour, cream, sugar, and eggs until smooth.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard or sweet dripping in a clean frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour batter into the pan to form pancakes or fritters.

  3. Cook until golden brown on both sides, then remove and serve.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Unfermented wheat flour
Provides the main structure that sets the batter into pancakes or fritters.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set as it cooks, adding structure.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, making the batter softer and more tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown on both sides. Sugar and milk solids in the batter brown quickly, so the heat must be moderate; too hot and the outside burns before the centre sets.

“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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