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Dessert

Pancakes, French Fashion

A light pancake made with flour, sugar, almond macaroons, orange flower water, cream, milk, egg yolks, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pancakes, French Fashion

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine flour, sugar, crushed macaroons, orange-flower water, salt, cream, milk, and egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Mix the batter well.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Clarify the butter and grease a pancake pan with a little of it.

  2. Pour a small amount of the batter into the pan and cook until well done on one side.

  3. Turn the pancake onto a silver plate and repeat with the remaining batter.

  4. Arrange the pancakes nicely.

Glaze and serve

  1. Glaze the last pancake with fine sugar.

  2. Salamander the glazed pancake.

  3. Place the pancakes in a hot oven for 10 minutes before serving.

  4. Serve very hot.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter for a tender set.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, making the pancakes softer and more tender.
Fine flour
Provides the starch that gives the pancakes their structure as they set.
Butter
Greases the pan and adds flavour and gentle browning to the surface.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancake surface brown when cooked.

The step that matters

Cooking each pancake on one side. Cooking over steady heat until the underside is set and golden lets the pancake hold together when turned. Pouring too much batter or cooking too fast can leave it raw inside or tear it.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, almond, cream, milk, egg, 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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