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Dessert

Yeast Flannel Cakes

Yeast Flannel Cakes are yeast-leavened cakes made with flour, milk, lard, butter, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Yeast Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour and milk until well combined.

  2. Add the melted lard, butter, and yeast to the mixture.

  3. Let the batter rise until doubled in size.

  4. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  5. Stir in the yolks, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

Cook

  1. Preheat a well-greased griddle to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Pour batter onto the 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. 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 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).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it rises and cooks.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the batter rise and become airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and the whipped whites add lift to the batter.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter can form gluten.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the cakes brown.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the cakes tender and softens their crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that lightens the batter. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the cakes turn out dense instead of 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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