Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Pancakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix cream, eggs, flour, cinnamon, pounded sugar, and clarified butter until smooth.
Cook
Heat a pan over medium heat and grease it with butter.
Pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom thinly.
Cook until the pancake is set and lightly browned, about 4-5 minutes.
Keep pancakes warm while cooking additional batches.
Serve
Serve rolled with fine sugar or spread with preserve.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon and sugar 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure so the thin pancakes hold together when cooked.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and structure that sets the batter as it cooks.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, giving the pancakes a tender, soft texture.
- Clarified butter
- Adds fat for richness and helps the pancake brown evenly in the pan.
- Pounded sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the pancake brown as it cooks.
The step that matters
Cook until set and lightly browned. A thin batter needs enough heat to set before it is turned or rolled. Too little heat leaves it soft and pale, while too much heat scorches the outside before the centre sets.
Swap the cinnamon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, flour, sugar, butter):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Jalapenofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, flour, sugar, butter. 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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