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Dessert

French Pancakes

A light pancake made with eggs, milk, flour, and oil, served with jelly and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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French 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 ↓

French Pancakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs.

  2. In a bowl, mix the yolks with milk, salt, and sugar.

  3. Add a third of this mixture to the flour and stir until smooth.

  4. Incorporate the remaining milk mixture and beat well.

  5. Add the salad oil and mix thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a small frying pan and add butter.

  2. Pour enough batter into the pan to cover the bottom.

  3. Cook until light brown, then flip and brown the other side.

  4. Spread each pancake with jelly, roll them up, and dust with powdered 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Yolks enrich the batter and add richness, while the whites are separated for the batter's structure.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin pancake together when cooked.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that thins the batter and adds moisture and tenderness.
Salad oil
Adds fat that keeps the batter tender and helps the pancakes stay soft.
Butter
Adds fat to the pan that promotes gentle browning and a rich flavor on the surface.

The step that matters

Cooking the first side until light brown. The pan must be hot enough for the batter to set quickly but not so hot that the surface scorches before the centre sets. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs steady heat, so a moderate heat gives an even golden colour and clean flipping.

“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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