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Pancakes, French Fashion

A sweet pancake made with flour, sugar, bitter almond macaroons, orange flower water, cream, milk, egg yolks, and butter, glazed with fine sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pancakes, French Fashion

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, macaroons, orange flower water, salt, cream, milk, and egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Clarify the butter and grease a pancake pan with a little of it.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Pour a small amount of the mixture into the pan and cook until well done on one side.

  2. Turn the pancake onto a silver plate.

  3. Repeat with the remaining mixture.

  4. Arrange the pancakes nicely.

Glaze and serve

  1. Glaze the last one with fine sugar.

  2. Salamander it.

  3. If using a hot oven, place the pancakes inside for 10 minutes.

  4. Glaze and serve hot.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks bind the batter and help set the pancakes as they cook.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pancakes together when cooked.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving a tender, soft texture.
Butter
Greases the pan and adds fat for flavour and browning on the surface.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking one side until well done. Cooking the first side fully before turning sets the pancake so it holds together when flipped. Turning too early can tear it apart.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, almond, cream, milk, egg, butter. 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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