Pancakes 101

this pancakes 101 video is sponsored by simply safe more on them later I'm going to show you a foolproof pancake batter and some little variations on it then I'm gonna walk you through some options on how to actually cook it because you do have many options I hope to show you what can go wrong as much as I'll show you what I would consider to be right do not be expecting any fancy twists this is a basic effective recipe for a basic effective food probably the first thing I ever learned how to make you can obviously make your batter in nearly any vessel but to me this is so a job for my big 1 quart Pyrex measuring jug because the first thing I want to do with it is melt some butter 2 tablespoons are about 14 grams this will make the pancakes moist and give them flavor I can Chuck this container straight into the microwave and I just give it like 30 seconds until the butter is not quite all melted if your butter is too hot it could curdle the egg that's coming so I get it partially melted and then swish it around to melt the rest by the time that solid core is melted you've got liquid butter that's not very hot at all nonetheless the next thing I'll put in is my sugar this will lower the temperature even more before the eggs arrive I do two tablespoons about 25 grams plenty of people would say this is not traditional but it's not super sweet and it'll enhance browning you could mix that in with a whisk if you want but I think a fork does just fine now for the egg just one whole egg give it a little tap to break it and crack her in then I'll also do some vanilla maybe a couple teaspoons I just eyeball it again a lot of folks would say that's not traditional but I think it tastes good I think you'll have a much easier time mixing this batter together if you really beat in the egg and now before the milk goes in we do it now the egg is not sloshing around everywhere we can get it really liquefied and get the butter emulsified into it if you don't do that the butter tends to solidify badly when the cold milk hits it you could call this one and a half or one and three-quarter cups of milk like 400 mils I just pour in enough to get me two full cups of total liquid the proportions do not have to be precise I do a teaspoon of kosher salt or about 6 grams I think that's conservative you might want some more salt if you're using unsalted butter and then baking powder you need a lot of baking powder to make fluffy pancakes I do a heaped tablespoon that's like a tablespoon plus a teaspoon or sixteen grams then comes all-purpose flour and the flour is the most variable part of this it all depends on how thick you like your pancakes I usually start by scooping in maybe a cup and a half or 200 grams I mix that up a bit and then add some more until I get the thickness I like it is essential to not over mix pancake batter once the flour goes in just barely mix it in it should still have a bunch of smallish lumps in it over mixing makes pancakes tough the lumps will cook out the more flour the thicker the batter the thicker the batter the thicker the pancakes it's as simple as that and I like them thick I may have overshot the mark a little bit here though that's really thick we'll wait to assess until after it rests pancake batter cooks better if you let it sit and let the flour hydrate for a few minutes I force myself to do this by not preheating my cooking surface until after I get the batter mixed up you can cook pancakes in many things but here's a widely available option a standard 10-inch nonstick skillet sure you can cook pancakes in a stainless steel pan but to avoid sticking I usually use a little extra butter and I cook the first side a little bit longer which gets you a darker color but it's fine a Teflon pan is easier though I'll get that heating up every pan and every stove is different but for me a little south of medium is usually perfect the trickiest part of making pancakes is finding and keeping the right heat here's how my dad taught me to test this when I was a little kid he said you got to get your hand wet and then you flick some water in the pan if it just sits there and stares at you the pan is too cold if it fizzes right out it's too hot but if it kind of dances in the pan like that you're perfect now in my majority I prefer to simply let my butter be my test I just take a stick of butter and I rub down the pan unlike other cooking fats butter has water that fizzes out when it reaches the boiling point and thereafter it has milk solids that visibly Brown I like to put my batter in when the butter is just barely starting to brown you'll find that your batter thickens a bit as it sits that is now too thick even for me no problem I'll just loosen it up with a little bit more milk one advantage of using a round pan for pancakes is it'll function like a mold just pour the batter out and it'll naturally spread into a tidy circle don't smoosh it around that will get you an ugly surface like that just let the batter spread itself this just takes a few minutes to cook you've got to wait until it's solid enough on the first side to flip without it falling apart your best sign is the bubbles you see bubbles popping on the surface that means it's getting cooked through they'll form on the edge first and then move into the center how do we flip well the problem with using a pan with a raised edge is that it's kind of awkward to get a spatula down in there plus a normal home kitchen spatula like this is too small for a 10-inch pancake the pancake really might bend and break as you're flipping it around so you have to wait until the bottom side is really cooked solid and then yeah by that point it could be burned this is why a lot of people making large pancakes in pans tend to flip the pancake in the air you can air flip it before it's solid enough to safely flip with a spatula and therefore before it might be too dark you can't be hesitant if you are you won't flick with enough force there you can see that it smelled my fear a little bit there the rear edge did not clear the pan all the way when I flipped it and now it's slightly folded under that's fine how do you know when it's done well you can see when pancake batter is cooked from the outside if it's not a liquid anymore it's cooked but with a really thick fluffy pancake like this the center can still be raw even though the outside looks done see you don't want a gooey pancake my admittedly unscientific solution to this problem is to cook the pancake until it's outwardly done and then just wait another minute it may still be a little gooey on the inside when we remove it to a cooling rack but a big thick pancake is like a steak you let it rest for a few minutes the heat from the outside will keep moving to the inside and the interior will finish cooking anticipating that so-called carryover cooking is how you make sure that they won't be dry on the inside problem of course now is that we have only one pancake you could throw the whole rack into a warm oven while you cook another one that works okay you can have multiple pancakes going in multiple pans but this right here is why most major home pancake enthusiasts eventually invest in some specialized equipment this is a very cheap flat square griddle pan this is what I use when I cook pancakes for my kids which I do almost every Saturday morning it's unhealthy don't oh good job now when I make pancakes for them I make a half batch of batter a whole batch is just too much problem is the batter is built around a fixed quantity the egg and it's important to keep the egg content proportionally low too much egg makes pancakes tough so when I make a half batch I just use the egg yolk I toss the white if anything straight yolk makes the pancakes even better certain people also insist on making certain decorative additions I have no problem with that it's a great way to learn some basic color theory I do just about anything for these guys which is why 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flippin needed no giant special spatula needed easy and with the short rimmed griddle pan it's easy to get in there with a spatula now one thing to note if your pancakes are a little too big like mine usually are they might overlap each other a little bit when you're flipping them and you'll get little patches of raw batter on the cooked surface like that don't freak out you're not gonna kill anybody that raw batter will probably steam cook before the pancake is done there you can see it's already gone solid without any direct heat if you're really worried about it you can flip them back on there first side for just a sec right before you take them out the boys don't like syrup they like powdered sugar you can get a little shaker Cup or you can just put some powdered sugar in a sieve and then tap the sieve there you go so in that instance I was able to cook enough pancakes for my customers in one batch but these are very small customers if you're feeding bigger people or more people you might want to invest in a big wide electric tabletop griddle there's lots on the market like this for well under a hundred bucks if you want to have a bunch of pancakes all done at the same time something like this is your best option if you want a more even color on your pancakes it helps a little to brush the excess butter off with a towel though nothing seems to evenly distribute the fat like cooking pancakes in it by that I mean the second batch usually has a nice even bronze color if you care about that and if you care about your pancakes being round scooping it out with a little measuring cup really helps you can buy these pancake batter dispenser thingies with a valve at the bottom these are supposed to give you perfectly round pancakes but I find that it only works with a thinner batter a thick batter like I prefer just does not flow evenly and the little measuring cup really gets you almost perfectly round pancakes now this batter that I'm using is slightly different instead of using milk I am using buttermilk real buttermilk which is basically like a milky yogurt that lactic acid taste really shines through when something is subtly flavored as a pancake but if you make that switch you can't use baking powder baking powder contains both acid and alkali the buttermilk provides all the acid you need so you just need to balance it with alkali baking soda sodium bicarb as the Brits would say just one teaspoon max really to neutralize this much butter milk and make bubbles pulling these out to a cooling rack may be the single most effective technique to improve your pancakes they're putting off a ton of deme right now and if they were sitting on a plate that steam would be condensing underneath them making them soggy yes I prefer fake maple syrup don't add any Canada oh man something so simple has no business being so good

Channel: Adam Ragusea

Views: 1,120,414

Rating: 4.9142737 out of 5

Keywords: fluffy pancakes, pancake recipe, how to make pancakes, easy pancakes, fluffy pancake recipe, pancake recipes, how to make, buttermilk pancakes, hot cakes, hot cakes recipe, how to make pancakes from scratch, how to make pancakes at home, pancake recipe easy, fluffy pancake recipe easy, how to make pancakes tasty, easy pancakes from scratch, easy pancakes to make at home, easy pancake recipe, pancake recipes easy, pancake recipes from scratch, pancake recipes home cooking

Id: IY5ykPd3coo

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/BlueOgreBear]

Hmmmmm, interesting. I'm going to try this next week. See I'm used to making crepe type pancakes, so I bung eggs, flour, milk, salt, and oil into a bowl, whizz them up and then gently pop them into a pan using a soup ladle. Rule of the thumb for me, the first one (or two if you suddenly realised at this point you misread the measuring jug and added too much milk like I did Tuesday) is always a dud, then after you get perfectly round cute pancakes/crepes. On Tuesday, I made some with a chicken curry filling and for afters, I used Adam's idea for mixing ice cream and Oreos and filled more pancakes/crepes with that. Here's a piccy. :D

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERprsd6XkAAbu5X?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

[u/CarpetStore]

I really enjoyed this one. I love cooking yet somehow making one of the easiest foods still leaves me feeling like I'm somehow doing everything wrong. The way Adam addressed the speed of production, flipping struggles, griddle shape/temperature, etc. made me realize that some of my struggles are shared and that I'm not just destined to be bad at making pancakes.

[u/harmonicaccent]

This is one of those instances where I don't think Adam's method of eyeballing ingredients is optimal. It's not very difficult to measure out your wet and dry ingredients when making pancakes and doing so keeps you from wasting your time and getting a less than ideal product.

[u/Pieanator]

Sad to see it, hopefully a waffle video comes next!

[u/jonjosefjingl]

I didn’t like the video. Pancakes just seem like a simple thing and he really didn’t add anything .

[u/cursed-siren]

i had them today and they are divine

[u/succulent_bricks]

simply safe is shit

[u/Magic_Vibrations]

Watched the video before bed, made the recipe as soon as I woke up

[u/NotVurts]

I tried making it and failed :(