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Pancakes and Fritters

A batter of eggs, flour, milk, butter and salt is fried into pancakes and fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 and Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, whisk the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and a little milk to the yolks, and beat until smooth.

  3. Stir in the remaining milk.

  4. Just before frying, fold in the beaten egg whites.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan and add a small piece of butter.

  2. Pour ½ cup of batter into the pan when the butter has melted.

  3. Fry for 5 minutes until browned on one side.

  4. Separate the edges with a knife, roll the pancake, and keep warm while making the others.

  5. Serve with sifted sugar and a slice 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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
Yolks bind and enrich the batter, while whites beaten in add air for a lighter pancake.
Flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the pancake together as it sets.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that makes the batter pourable and gives the pancake moisture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the pancake brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while they are whipped, and they lose it as the batter stands. Folding them in gently just before frying keeps the pancakes light instead of flat and dense.

“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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