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Breakfast

Apple Pancakes

A batter of flour, milk, eggs, cinnamon, lemon peel, currants, and apples is fried into pancakes and served with cinnamon and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with the milk until smooth.

  2. Add the eggs, ground cinnamon, grated lemon peel, currants, and chopped apples; mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Pour the mixture into the hot pan and fry until golden on both sides.

  3. Serve hot, sprinkled with ground cinnamon and sugar.

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the pancakes set firm when fried.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together while cooking.
Apples
Add moisture, sweetness and bulk to the pancakes.
Milk
Thins the batter and adds moisture for a tender texture.

The step that matters

Fry until golden on both sides. The pan must be hot enough to brown the surface and set the egg and flour before the thin batter spreads or sticks. Cooking through on both sides gives a firm, evenly cooked pancake.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg, cinnamon, lemon, apple, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, cinnamon, lemon, apple, 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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