Pancakes 101

This pancakes 101 video is sponsored by SimpliSafe.
More on them later.I’m going to show you a foolproof pancake
batter and some little variations on it, thenI’m going to walk you through some options
on how to actually cook it, because you dohave many options. I hope to show you what
can go wrong as much as I’ll show you whatI 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 howto make.You can obviously make your batter in nearly
any vessel, but to me this so a job for mybig, one-quart pyrex measuring jug, because
the first thing I want to do with it is meltsome butter: two tablespoons or about 14 grams.
This will make the pancakes moist and givethem flavor. I can chuck this container straight
into the microwave, and I just give it like30 seconds until the butter is not-quite-all
melted. If your butter is too hot, it couldcurdle the egg that’s coming, so I get it
partially melted and then swish it aroundto melt the rest. By the time that solid core
is melted, you’ve got liquid butter that’snot very hot at all.Nonetheless, the next thing I’ll put in is
my sugar. This will lower the temperatureeven more before the egg arrives. I do two
tablespoons — about 25 grams. Plenty ofpeople would say this is not traditional,
but it’s not super sweet, and it’ll enhancebrowning. You could mix that in with a whisk
if you want, but I think a fork does justfine.Now for the egg — just one, whole egg. Give
it a little tap to break it and crack herin. Then I’ll also do some vanilla, maybe
a couple teaspoons, I just eyeball it. Again,a lotta folks would say 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 inthe egg now, before the milk goes in. We do
it now, and the egg is not sloshing aroundeverywhere. We can get it really liquified,
and get the butter emulsified into it. Ifyou don’t do that, the butter tends to solidify
badly when the cold milk hits it.You could call this 1 and a half, or 1 and
3/4 cups of milk. Like 400 mils. I just pourin enough to get me two full cups of total
liquid. The proportions do NOT have to beprecise. 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. Youneed a lot of baking powder to make fluffy
pancakes. I do a heaped tablespoon. That’slike a tablespoon plus a teaspoon, or 16 grams.Then comes all-purpose flour, and the flour
is the most variable part of this. It alldepends on how thick you like your pancakes.
I usually start by scooping in maybe a cupand a half, or 200 grams. I mix that up a
bit, and then add some more until I get thethickness I like. It is essential to not over-mix
pancake batter once the flour goes in. Justbarely mix it in — it should still have
a bunch of small-ish lumps in it. Over-mixingmakes pancakes tough. The lumps will cook
out.The more flour, the thicker the batter. The
thicker the batter, the thicker the pancakes.It’s a simple as that, and I like them thicc.
I may have overshot the mark a little bithere, though. That’s really thick. We’ll wait
to assess until after it rests. Pancake battercooks better if you let it sit and let the
flour hydrate for a few minutes. I force myselfto 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 toavoid sticking I usually use a little extra
butter and I cook the first side a littlebit 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 pancakesis finding and keeping the right heat. Here’s
how my dad taught me to test this when I wasa little kid. He said you gotta get your hand
wet and you flick some water in the pan. Ifit just sits there and stares at you, the
pan is too cold. If if fizzes right out, it’stoo hot. But if kinda 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 stickof butter and I rub down the pan. Unlike other
cooking fats, butter has water that fizzesout when it reaches the boiling point, and
thereafter it has milk solids that visiblybrown. 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 forme. 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 pourthe batter out and it’ll naturally spread
into a tidy circle. Don’t smoosh it around— that’ll get you an ugly surface like that.
Just let the batter spread itself.This just takes a few minutes to cook. You’ve
gotta wait until it’s solid enough on thefirst side to flip without it falling apart.
Your best sign is the bubbles. You see bubblespopping 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 kindaawkward to get a spatula down in there. Plus,
a normal home-kitchen spatula like this istoo small for a 10-inch pancake. The pancake
really might bend and break as you’re flippingit 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 thereforebefore it might be too dark. You can’t be
hesitant. If you are, you won’t flick withenough force. There, you can see that it smelled
my fear a little bit there — the rear edgedid not clear the pan all the way when I flipped
it and now it’s slightly folded under. That’sfine.How do you know when it’s done? Well, you
can see when pancake batter is cooked fromthe outside. If it’s not a liquid anymore,
it’s cooked. But, with a really thick, fluffypancake 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’soutwardly done, and then just wait another
minute. It may still be a little gooey onthe 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, and heat
from the outside will keep moving to the insideand the interior will finish cooking. Anticipating
that so-called carryover cooking is how youmake sure that they won’t be dry on the inside.The problem of course, now, is that we have
only one pancake. You could throw the wholerack into a warm oven while you cook another
one. That works OK. You could have multiplepancakes going in multiple pans. But this
right here is why most major home pancakeenthusiasts eventually invest in some specialized
equipment. This is a very cheap, flat, squaregriddle pan. This is what I use when I cook
pancakes for my kids, which I do almost everySaturday morning.”Daddy wanted to make a video of pancakes
so I’m helping him.””Oh, good job!”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 importantto keep the egg content proportionally low.
Too much egg makes pancakes tough. So whenI make a half batch, I just use the egg yolk.
I toss the white. If anything, straight-yolkmakes 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.”It’s turning to green!”I’d do just about anything for these guys,
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Link is in the description.OK, let’s cook these funny green pancakes.
Butter is just barely browning. It’s ready.When dealing with a square cooking surface,
it is much more geometrically efficient tocook a bunch of small pancakes instead of
a few big ones. It’s the opposite with a roundpan. Small pancakes are less efficient here.
Look at all the wasted space on the pan’ssurface.I’m perfectly happy to cook small pancakes
on my square griddle because small pancakesare way easier to cook. You basically flip
them whenever. I look for bubbles formingaround the edge. Another good tell is if you
see the edges going to kind of a matte finish.If your pancakes are merged into each other,
you can kinda cut them apart, and then there,no scary air-flipping needed, no giant special
special spatula needed. Easy. And with theshort-rimmed griddle pan, it’s easier to get
in there with the spatula.Now, one thing to note. If your pancakes are
little too big like mine usually are, theymight overlap each other a little bit when
you’re flipping them, and you’ll get littlepatches of raw batter on the cooked surface
like that. Don’t freak out. You’re not gonnakill 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 worriedabout it, you can flip them back on their
first side for just a sec right before youtake them out.The boys don’t like syrup. They like powdered
sugar. You can get a little shaker cup oryou 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. Butthese are very small customers. If you’re
feeding bigger people, or more people, youmight want to invest in a big, wide electric
tabletop griddle. There’s lots on the marketlike this for well-under a hundred bucks.
If you want a bunch of pancakes all done atthe 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 butteroff with a towel. Though, nothing seems to
evenly distribute the fat like cooking pancakesin it. By that I mean, the second batch usually
has a nice even bronze color, if you careabout that.And if you care about your pancakes being
round, scooping them out with a little measuringcup really helps. You can buy these pancake
batter dispenser thingies with a valve atthe bottom. These are supposed to give you
perfectly round pancakes, but I find thatit only works with a thinner batter. A thick
batter, like I prefer, just does not flowevenly. 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 usingbuttermilk. Real buttermilk, which is basically
like a milky yogurt. That lactic acid tastereally shines through in something as subtly
flavored as a pancake. But if you make thatswitch, you can’t use baking powder. Baking
powder contains both acid and alkali. Thebuttermilk 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 buttermilk and make
bubbles.Pulling these out to a cooling rack may be
be the single most-effective technique toimprove your pancakes. They’re putting off
a ton of steam right now, and if they weresitting on a plate, that steam would be condensing
underneath them, making them soggy. Yes, Iprefer fake maple syrup. Don’t @ me, Canada.
Oh man, something so simple has no businessbeing so good.