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Dessert

‘Crêpes’ of the Marchioness

A thin French pancake made from flour, eggs, milk, butter, and served with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

‘Crêpes’ of the Marchioness

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour and salt.

  2. Add eggs and mix to form a smooth, thick paste.

  3. Gradually dilute the paste with milk until it is slightly thickened and liquid.

  4. Melt butter in a small saucepan until slightly browned.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a frying pan and moisten the bottom with 1 tablespoon of clarified butter.

  2. Pour enough paste into the pan to cover the bottom with a thin layer.

  3. As the crêpe cooks, poke bubbles with a fork and swirl the pan to prevent sticking.

  4. After a few seconds, flip the crêpe using a quick motion.

  5. Moisten the pan with butter again and cook the other side while moving the pan.

  6. Transfer the crêpe to a hot plate and sift powdered sugar over it.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin crêpe together when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during cooking, giving the crêpe its structure.
Milk
Thins the paste into a pourable batter and adds moisture to the crêpe.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and keeps the crêpe from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Pour a thin layer of batter. Too much batter makes a thick, doughy crêpe that will not flip cleanly. Swirling the pan spreads the batter evenly so the layer stays thin and cooks through.

“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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