Name: Baking Powder Flannel Cakes
Ingredients: 4 cups all-purpose flour; 3 large eggs; 2 tablespoons butter and lard, melted; 3 heaping teaspoons baking powder; Milk, enough for a thick batter; Coarse sea salt, to taste

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 ↓

Baking Powder Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons butter and lard, melted
3 heaping teaspoons baking powder
Milk, enough for a thick batter
Coarse sea salt, to taste

Directions

In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, and enough milk to create a thick batter.
Beat the egg yolks and add them to the mixture along with the melted butter and lard.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.
Sift the baking powder into the batter and mix until just combined.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + buttertop 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

White Cake431 recipes

Pound Cake373 recipes

Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes

Spice Cake344 recipes

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Baking Powder Flannel Cakes