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Dessert

B. Flannel Cakes

Flannel cakes are a batter-based dish made with butter, milk, eggs, flour, salt, and yeast, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

B. Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the butter in the milk until melted.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Beat the eggs until light and stir them into the milk mixture.

  4. Add the sifted flour, salt, and yeast, and mix well.

  5. Set the batter near a warm place to rise for 3 hours.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the batter on a griddle like buckwheat cakes.

  2. Serve in layers, buttered and cut into four pieces.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Fresh yeast
Produces gas during the rising time, leavening the batter so the cakes are light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold together when cooked.
Sifted flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once hydrated with the milk and eggs.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the cakes tenderness and browning.
Butter
Adds fat for softness and flavor in the batter.

The step that matters

Set the batter to rise. Yeast needs a warm place and enough time to produce gas; if the batter is too cold or rises too briefly, the cakes will be dense rather than 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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