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
Beat the eggs well, leaving out half the whites.
Stir the beaten eggs into the milk.
Mix the flour with a little of the milk.
Gradually add the rest of the milk to the flour mixture.
Add the ginger and salt.
Stir everything together.
Cook the pancakes
Heat a pan.
Add a piece of butter or lard to the pan.
Pour a ladleful of batter into the pan.
Move the batter around to spread evenly.
Shake the pan.
When one side is golden, flip the pancake.
Cook until both sides are done.
Place the pancake on a dish.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,564 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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 as they set during cooking.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that give the pancakes their body and structure.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and makes the batter pourable while adding moisture.
- Butter or lard
- Greases the pan and adds fat for browning and flavor on the surface.
The step that matters
Flip when one side is golden. Flipping too early tears the pancake because the set underside is not yet firm enough to hold. Waiting until the edges look set and the underside is golden gives a sturdy flip and even cooking.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, butter):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Capersfits better
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, 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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