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Breakfast

Pancakes

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, ginger, brandy, and salt is cooked into pancakes and served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pancakes

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

  1. Beat the eggs well, leaving out half the whites.

  2. Stir the eggs into the milk.

  3. Mix the flour with a little milk, then gradually add the rest of the milk.

  4. Add ginger, brandy, and salt, and stir well.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in a pan.

  2. Pour a ladleful of batter into the pan and move the pan to spread the batter evenly.

  3. Shake the pan.

  4. Turn the pancake when one side is done, and cook until both sides are golden.

  5. Drain excess grease before serving.

  6. Sprinkle with sugar.

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.

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.

  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. Milk + flourtop 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 + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as the pancake sets.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the pancake its body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that hydrates the flour and gives a tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and helps the pancake brown in the pan.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor, and some alcohol evaporates during cooking.

The step that matters

Turn the pancake when one side is done. Turning too early tears the pancake before its surface has set enough to hold together. Waiting until the edges look set and the underside is golden lets the pancake lift cleanly and cook evenly through.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, brandy, 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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