Skip to main content
Main

Plain Flapjacks

A simple batter of flour, salt, sugar or molasses, baking powder, and liquid cooked into pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Plain Flapjacks

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar (or molasses), and baking powder, then mix well until all dry ingredients are combined.

  2. Add water or milk gradually to form a batter.

Cook

  1. Heat a skillet over medium heat and pour in batter to form pancakes.

  2. Cook until bubbles form on the surface, then flip and cook until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the pancakes their body and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas when moistened and heated, making the pancakes rise and turn light.
Sugar or molasses
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as the pancakes cook.
Water or milk (in the method)
Hydrates the flour and forms the liquid batter that cooks into pancakes.

The step that matters

Flipping at the bubble stage. Bubbles form as leavening gas expands and escapes through the batter. Flipping once bubbles appear and the edges set means the centre is cooked through; flipping too early can tear the pancake and leave it raw inside.

“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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes