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, mix eggs and sugar until combined.
Add milk and flour, stirring until smooth.
Cook the pancakes
Heat a pan over medium heat and grease it with butter.
Pour enough batter to cover the pan thinly.
Cook until the edges lift, then flip if necessary.
Keep pancakes warm until ready to serve.
Serve
Serve with sugar sprinkled between layers or spread with apricot preserve and roll up.
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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar and cinnamon 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 set the pancakes, giving them structure and body.
- Flour
- Provides the starch framework that holds the thin pancake together when cooked.
- Milk
- Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture to the pancakes.
- Clarified butter
- Greases the pan and adds richness and browning to the pancake surface.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and promotes gentle browning on the cooked surface.
The step that matters
Cook until the edges lift, then flip. Flipping too early tears a thin batter that has not set, while waiting too long over-browns or dries the pancake. Edges that lift show the underside has set enough to turn.
“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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