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 ↓
Pancakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, make a hole in the flour and break in the eggs one by one.
Pour in a little milk and gradually stir in the flour, adding more milk as needed to avoid lumps.
Once half the milk is added, beat the batter well until it is full of air bubbles, then add the remaining milk.
Let the batter rest for 2 hours.
Cook the pancakes
Heat a small frying pan and melt enough butter to coat the bottom.
Pour in just enough batter for one pancake and let it spread.
Once the edges lift, run a knife under the pancake and flip it over.
Roll the pancake up and keep it warm on a hot dish.
Repeat with the remaining batter, buttering the pan as needed.
Serve
Serve the pancakes stacked on a napkin, dusted with sugar, and with lemon quarters on the side.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the batter's structure as its starch sets during cooking.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the pancakes.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
- Butter
- Coats the pan so the pancakes release and brown with a rich flavor.
The step that matters
Beating the batter with air before adding the remaining milk. Beating incorporates air bubbles that give the pancakes lift and a lighter texture. Adding milk in stages lets the flour be worked smooth first, which helps prevent lumps.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, milk, butter, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, butter, sugar. 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.
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