Yang grumbles: “My body is aching all over from gym training…sigh, don’t feel like going out for breakfast tomorrow…”
Ling: “Hmm, I could do pancakes at home for breakfast…I happen to have all the necessary ingredients…”
Yang (rubbing his hands and brightened up): “Yes, yes, let’s do pancakes at home!”
That led me to try out an online popular recipe for home-made pancakes – sooner than later. :P
Okay, the secret to getting pancakes to rise sufficiently to give all that wonderful fluffiness is in the amount of bubbles you could introduce into the batter. Now, the science behind it is either you mechanically whip up egg white to create the bubbles OR get a chemical reaction going to create those bubbles. I have thought of using a fizzy drink too…but that’s another science project another time.
Guess which method I opted to create the bubbles? The tried and tested method of course! Forget about the whipping. Put bicarbonate of soda and a source of acid together and voila, bubbles of CO2 for you. This is the same idea used in the volcanic eruption project. Or if you try to recall, the concept was taught in secondary 2 science. :) BTW, the acid would be mostly used up for the chemical reaction and hence the resultant batter won’t taste sour.
Bicarbonate of soda is an easily available baking ingredient but what could be used as the source of acid? Look around the kitchen and you probably already have at least one edible acid. They are vinegar, citrus fruits (e.g. lemons, limes & oranges), yoghurt, buttermilk, wine vinegar and even apple cider.
From what I read online, it seems that the combination of milk and vinegar is commonly used in the making of pancake batter. Buttermilk and yoghurt are a tad too costly on the wallet just to make pancakes. The recipe below uses buttermilk. It could be replaced by milk + white vinegar / juice of citrus fruit. Try it! It is way better than commercial premix. :D
Ingredients (Makes about six 6-inched pancakes: 3 for Yang, 2 for me & 1 for Hannah)
Dry Ingredients
Plain flour – 1 1/4 cup
Sugar – 1/4 Cup
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Bicarbonate of soda (Baking soda) – 1 tsp
Salt – pinch
Wet Ingredients
Buttermilk – 1 1/4 cup (alternative: 1 1/4 cup milk + 2 tbsp white vinegar OR citrus fruit juice, stir well)
Vegetable oil – 1/4 cup
Egg – 1 large
Vanilla – 1 tsp
Method
1) Stir to combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2) Stir to combine the wet ingredients in a measuring cup. (Sequence of adding ingredients into the measuring cup: buttermilk, oil, egg, vanilla)
3) Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a whisk to mix everything well until most of the lumps are gone. (The batter would be quite thick). Let the batter sit for about 2 minutes to allow chemical reaction to create bubbles. But don’t leave the batter to stand for too long as the bubbles could rise and burst! :P
4) Heat up (somewhere between medium & low heat) a non-stick frying pan and pour a soup ladle of batter into it.
5) When the top side shows enough bubbling, flip the pancake over with a spatula to cook the other side. (Note: if the frying pan is too hot, the bottom side will burn before enough bubbles show up on the top side)
6) Serve warm with butter and maple syrup. :)
Next time round, I’d probably add some bananas or berries to the batter to improve the nutritional value of our home-made pancakes. :)
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