Skip to main content
Dessert

Macaroni Pancakes

A sweet pancake made with macaroni, eggs, wheatmeal, milk, lemon rind, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Macaroni Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the macaroni in water until soft, then drain and cut into 1‑inch pieces.

  2. In a bowl, mix the eggs, wheatmeal, and milk to make a batter.

  3. Add the lemon rind, sugar, and macaroni to the batter and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. In a skillet, melt a small piece of butter (about the size of a walnut) for each pancake.

  2. Pour the batter into the skillet to form pancakes and cook until golden brown.

  3. Sift sugar over the pancakes and serve hot with slices of lemon.

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

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

  2. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Provides the bulk and chewy body that gives these pancakes their substance.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the pancakes as they cook.
Allinson fine wheatmeal
Forms the flour base that gives the batter structure.
Milk
Thins the batter and adds moisture and richness.
Butter
Fat in the skillet that helps the pancakes brown and release.

The step that matters

Cooking the pancakes in the skillet. The butter must be hot enough to brown the batter without burning. Too little heat leaves pancakes pale and soggy, while too much heat scorches the outside before the centre sets.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes