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Biline Pancakes

A pancake made with milk, cream, cinnamon, lemon peel, eggs, flour, sugar, brandy, and fried in clarified butter or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Biline Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil the milk and cream with cinnamon and lemon peel for 1 hour.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs for 5-6 minutes.

  3. Mix in the flour and sifted sugar.

  4. Strain the milk and cream mixture and add it to the egg mixture along with the brandy.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a pan and add a little clarified butter or lard.

  2. Pour a large spoonful of batter into the hot pan and cook until golden.

  3. Dust with sifted sugar as pancakes are removed from the pan.

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. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Bind the batter and help set the pancakes as they cook.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together when cooked.
Milk and cream
Add moisture and richness, giving the pancakes a tender texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Cook until golden over moderate heat. Batter poured into a pan that is too hot browns on the outside before the centre sets, while a pan that is too cool makes pancakes pale and soggy. Adding the butter or lard to a hot pan helps give even golden browning.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, cinnamon, egg, flour, sugar, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, cinnamon, egg, flour, sugar, brandy. 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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