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Dessert

Flour Batter Cakes

A simple batter of flour, milk, egg, lard, sugar, salt, and baking powder cooked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Flour Batter Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together the milk and egg.

  3. Melt the lard and add it to the milk and egg mixture.

  4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until smooth.

Cook

  1. Pour batter onto a hot griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pancake together as it cooks.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter set and bind.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, lifting the batter so the pancakes rise and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the pancakes and helps them brown on the griddle.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown evenly through caramelisation.

The step that matters

Pour batter onto a hot griddle and cook until golden brown on both sides.. A griddle that is not hot enough lets the batter spread and absorb fat before it sets, giving flat, greasy pancakes. Enough heat sets the surface quickly so the baking powder can lift the batter, and browning develops flavour on both faces.

“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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