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Pancakes, Waffles, Fritters

A batter made from stale bread crumbs, milk, eggs, flour, and baking powder, used for pancakes, waffles, and fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Pancakes, Waffles, Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix stale bread crumbs and sweet milk.

  2. Let stand for 5 minutes.

  3. Add salt, beaten eggs, flour, and baking powder. Mix well.

  4. Add milk to achieve the right consistency.

Fry

  1. For fritters, use 2 eggs, ½ pint milk, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 cups flour, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  2. Add egg whites just before frying in hot lard.

  3. For Norwegian fritters, combine ½ can corn, ½ cup milk, 1 egg, 1 large cup flour, and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Drop into hot lard.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour 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

Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and add body and tenderness to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the hot fat.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once it is cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter so it rises and stays airy when fried.

The step that matters

Drop into hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the batter soaks up grease and turns heavy and oily instead of crisp and light.

“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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