How To Make The Perfect Pancakes For Pancake Day

Jo Hughes Mon, Feb 8, 2016

Raise your hand if pancakes were a childhood favourite breakfast. And you certainly wouldn’t be alone if they feature regularly in your go-to easy comfort food or not-much-in-fridge repertoire.

Pancake perfection comes down to the ratio of wet and dry ingredients (or more precisely baker’s percentage), and your cooking technique.

Perfect Pancake Ratios

Whether you like thick pikelet-style bundles of fluffiness, or thin crepe-style veils of deliciousness is a matter of choice, but it’s important to get the proportions right for each if you want to achieve perfect pancakey glory with either. Basic pancake mix ratios are as follows:

Thin Pancake Mix

1 cup plain flour
2 eggs (beaten)
1 cup milk

Thick Pancake Mix

1 cup self-raising flour
1 egg (beaten)
³⁄₄ cup milk

The Pancake Pan

Use a wide, heavy-bottomed pan with enough room to flip your pancakes without any mess. Although there are plenty of wide based non-stick pans sold specifically for pancake making, a simple iron griddle or stainless steel frying pan is just as effective provided you heat it well first.

Treat your first pancake as a test, as until the pan is heated evenly throughout, there’s a chance the pancake batter will stick and create a less-than-perfect flipping object.

If you love the taste of butter, be sure to use clarified butter to avoid burnt milk-solids as your pan heats. Otherwise a high smoke-point vegetable oil is ideal. A pastry brush helps to evenly distribute a few droplets of oil across the pan so you can avoid saturating each pancake. Use a ladle to spread the pancake batter evenly onto the pan once hot.

Pancake Pitfalls

There’s a few common pancaking myths out there that can lead to a disappointing pancake experience, not to mention mess to clean up. Here’s a few common mistakes to be wary of -

Making batter ahead

This is different to letting the batter ‘rest’ which can be done to achieve a chewier pancake texture by giving the gluten in the flour a chance to relax. Do this for no more than 15 minutes before making the pancakes. For fluffy pancakes, making the batter ahead is disastrous as the levening agent in the flour is de-activated by the liquid over time, so when it comes to cooking, you won’t achieve lift.

Over-sweetening

Sugar, fruit or any other sweet ingredients such as chocolate chips are likely to burn on the pan as your pancake cooks. Sugar burns at a much lower temperature than the rest of your pancake ingredients, so unless chargrilled is the effect you want to achieve, stick to adding sweetners only after the pancake is cooked.

Over-mixing

The trick here is that you want your wet and dry ingredients to be JUST combined, no more and no less. Over-mixing beats the air out of your batter, which leads to a poor pancake texture. Lumps on the other hand are the stuff of pancake nightmares. To avoid lumpy batter, add wet ingredients to dry (not the other way around) and mix slowly and evenly as you go.

Flipping too early

So listen up. You may have heard the time to flip is as soon as the bubbles start to appear - it isn’t. DON’T be tempted to do this or a doughy mess will likely ensue. Instead, wait until all the bubbles on the surface have burst and then make your flipping move. And just flip the once, as turning them too often causes deflation meaning texture woes would be inevitable if fluffy is your goal.

Flipping without a spatula

I know, it would be soooo cool to effortlessly toss a pancake a few feet in the air and equally-effortlessly catch it again, cooked side up in the pan. Try it if you must, thankfully all but the most determined will probably satisfy the urge with attempt 1. Following that, use a wide, thin and flexible spatula to gently lift from the edge, working at the pancake until you have enough on the spatula to manage a quick and even entire-pancake flip.

Need Some Pancake Recipe Inspiration?

Browse Australian.Kitchen for easy pancake ideas.