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Butteemilk Pancakes

A simple batter of flour, egg, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, and buttermilk cooked on a greased pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Butteemilk Pancakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, egg, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, and buttermilk until well combined.

Cook the pancakes

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a hot, greased pan or griddle.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pancake together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the structure of the pancakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the pancake surface brown during cooking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pancakes rise and become lighter.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity, tenderizing the batter and activating the baking powder.

The step that matters

Drop the batter onto a hot, greased pan. The pan must be hot enough to set the outside quickly so the pancake holds its shape, and greased so it does not stick. If the pan is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through; if too cool, the pancakes spread and stick.

“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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