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Preserve

French Pancakes

A light, airy pancake made with eggs, cream, and butter, cooked in a pan and finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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French Pancakes

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 ↓

French Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites.

  2. Beat the yolks separately.

  3. Whip the cream until stiff.

  4. Combine the eggs and cream together.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a little butter in an omelette pan over high heat.

  2. Pour a large spoonful of the mixture into the pan.

  3. Fry quickly.

  4. Roll the pancake onto a dish.

  5. Place it in the oven to rise.

  6. Serve very hot.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Whipped whites and yolks give the pancake its light, risen structure.
Cream
Whipped to stiffness, it adds airiness and moisture to the batter.
Butter
Melted in the pan, it greases the surface and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fry quickly. Over high heat the thin batter sets and browns fast; if it cooks slowly it dries out and loses the lightness the whipped eggs and cream provide.

“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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