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Pancakes

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, ginger, brandy, and salt is fried into pancakes and served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pancakes

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

  1. Beat the eggs well, leaving out half the whites.

  2. Stir the eggs into the milk.

  3. Mix the flour with a little milk, then gradually add the rest of the milk to the flour mixture.

  4. Add the ginger, brandy, and salt, and stir well.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat butter or lard in a frying pan.

  2. Pour a ladle full of batter into the pan, then move the batter to spread it and shake the pan.

  3. When one side is browned, flip the pancake.

  4. Once both sides are cooked, drain the pancake and place it on a dish.

  5. Serve with a sprinkle of 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.

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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the cooked pancakes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the batter, adding moisture and tenderness.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the pancakes their body.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the batter.
Butter or lard
Fat for frying that promotes browning and a golden crust.

The step that matters

When one side is browned, flip the pancake. Flipping too early tears the thin batter before it has set, while waiting too long can scorch the underside. Wait until the edges look set and the underside is golden.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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

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