Name: Pancakes and Fritters
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons flour; a pinch of salt; sugar to taste; 6 to 8 eggs, well beaten; milk or cream (optional); additional flour or ground rice (if using milk); apples, pared and cored, minced very fine (for apple fritters)

Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Pancakes and Fritters

Ingredients

3 tablespoons flour
a pinch of salt
sugar to taste
6 to 8 eggs, well beaten
milk or cream (optional)
additional flour or ground rice (if using milk)
apples, pared and cored, minced very fine (for apple fritters)

Directions

Make the batter

Let the mixture cool.
Mix in flour, salt, sugar, and beaten eggs.
If using milk, add more flour or ground rice.

Fry

Fry the mixture in a pan until golden brown.
For apple fritters, add minced apples to the batter and fry in the same way.

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.

Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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: Bind the batter and set during frying to give the pancakes structure.
Flour: Provides starch that thickens the batter and gives the cooked pancakes body.
Apples: Add moisture and sweetness to the fritters once minced into the batter.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Cooking over steady heat until golden brown sets the eggs and flour and browns the surface for flavour. Too little heat leaves the batter pale and soggy, while too much heat browns the outside before the centre sets.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

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

Apple Soup33 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

Mutton Broth292 recipes

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Pancakes and Fritters