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Breakfast

Pancakes

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, ginger, brandy, and salt is fried into pancakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 and stir them into the milk.

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

  3. Add the beaten ginger, brandy, and salt to the mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a pan and add a piece of butter or lard, then pour in a ladleful of batter.

  2. Move the pan to spread the batter evenly.

  3. Shake the pan, and when one side is browned, flip it over.

  4. Once cooked, place the pancake on a dish and serve immediately, sprinkling 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 + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Brandy + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 richness and structure to the cooked pancakes.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the batter body and hold the pancake together.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that turns the flour and eggs into a pourable batter and adds moisture.
Butter or lard
Greases the pan so the pancake releases cleanly and browns during frying.

The step that matters

Flipping the pancake once one side is browned. Flipping too early, before the underside has set, tears the pancake and leaves it doughy; waiting until the edges look dry and the underside is golden lets the batter structure hold.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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