The Best Pancakes You'll Ever Make | Epicurious 101

I'm Frank Proto, I'm a professional chef and coloring instructor and today I'm going to show you the

best

way to

make

pancakes

at home the Frank way. I'll go over techniques for making light, fluffy, airy

pancakes

so you'll n

ever

have to eat flat, lifeless pancakes again, these are pancakes 101. I

make

this pancake recipe all the time, chances are if you look in your pantry right now , you have

ever

ything you need to make them from scratch and there should be so many of them. Best when you make them from scratch the first thing I like to do is mix my dry ingredients together so I have all purpose flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

Baking powder and baking soda are essential because that will give us our yeast. it bubbles up and makes our pancakes light and fluffy, so once I put all the dry ingredients in, I use a whisk just to make sure there are no pockets of any ingredients left so that our dry ingredients are well mixed. I like to make wet ingredients. I have milk. is measured I have a little vegetable oil or a little neutral oil I have a little vanilla I have apple cider vinegar together, apple cider vinegar and milk form a buttermilk, part of the reason I use milk and apple cider like The opposite of buttermilk is that every time I buy buttermilk I make something with it, it sits in the refrigerator for two weeks and then I end up throwing it away like this.

I always have vinegar. I always have milk. I can always make a quick buttermilk. place and then I have some eggs, the eggs not only give structure, but they will also give us a little bit of fat and a little bit of yeast to our pancakes. I'm going to grab my whiskey, I can make sure my wet ingredients are well blended. so make sure this is mixed very well your yolks are broken your eggs are combined we have the wet ones we have the dry ones now we can mix them and this is what many people will mix the pancakes until they are well combined I don't That way, what What's happening now is that the liquid ingredients are starting to activate the baking soda and baking powder, so I'm just doing the folding to make sure it's combined really well and that's it.

I think I've mixed it maybe 20 or 25 times. We leave it alone, the lumps will be fine here, leave it alone, this is the last time we mix this, don't mix it anymore. I like my batter to be on the thicker side so we have nice big bubbles and my pancakes turn out pretty. and high foreigner the dough is mixed I have a griddle in front of me it's an electric griddle I love this this is amazing it's not very expensive the molds are round the pancakes are round and you can't get much in there but with this griddle I could probably do about 10 pancakes at a time to feed that hungry crowd very quickly.

A couple of things you can use if you don't have a griddle, you can buy a cast iron griddle that goes on the stove, you can use a non-stick one. frying pan or just a sauté pan, but for the most part this works better because you can do many things at once. I want to talk about the fat I use to cook my pancakes. I'll probably get a lot of hate for this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I like to use whipped salted butter, this will add a little saltiness and crunch to my finished pancake.

Okay, let's cook these pancakes. I have a nice heaping tablespoon of butter, spread it out if your butter gets hard. a little brown, okay, that just means our pancakes will have a little brown butter flavor and that's delicious. Make sure you have everything you need nearby because this will go away pretty quickly. I have my dough but I also have my favorite spoon. It's actually called a berry scoop, you can use whatever you want, people use ice cream scoops, people use teaspoons, but I feel like I get just the right amount of dough with this and what I'm going to do is scoop out my dough, try to Do not disturb the rest of the dough, put it on my griddle.

I don't care too much about circles. Everyone wants perfect circles. I don't. I also want my pancakes to be a certain size and this Berry spoon gives me the perfect size. When you're taking out your pancakes, don't be tempted to stir. I'm scooping from the side, taking a tablespoon, leaving all those bubbles intact in the rest of the dough, spread them out a little if you want them super round, that's fine. I don't mind round pancakes don't stir set the pancake batter aside don't stir don't stir I have a lot of butter on my griddle and that's what I want I want my pancakes to be almost fried around the edges I want that edge to be crispy and delicious and absorb as much butter as possible.

I like to use a plastic spatula for this, don't use metal for this, you'll get scratches and it won't be non-stick anymore. There is a temptation. a temptation to flip your pancakes too quickly stop relaxing breathing clearing I'm watching for the bubbles on the top to start popping you can see there's a bubble over the popping there's a bubble that popped there I want my bubbles to pop across the The pancake and the pancake should be ready before you start flipping. I think they are ready when you get under the pancake. A lot of times people push it and chase the pancake, you want to get it underneath, push quickly and then get away from you, look at that crispy edge, push quickly, get away if you turn towards you, all that butter will splatter on you, so I like to get away from me , look how big, light and fluffy these babies are and crunchy right next to it.

The temptation is to start pressing these Why what do you do when you do it? You are pushing all the bubbles out. Don't push your pancakes. Flip them over. Let them be the only thing I'll do. Sometimes I will move them. a little just to absorb some of that butter many times the first pancake or the first crepe is the failure no no no no with my pancakes the first pancakes are the

best

they are the crispiest they have the best edges they have The best colored pancakes are ready. I can see they are ready by this when I push my pancake, they spring back if you push the pancake and it squishes and you see the batter, they are not ready you want to see some spring, that's because they are light and fluffy and have a lot of bubbles.

Let's put them on a plate. It's all about the butter and the bubbles. Just look at that stack of flapjacks. When it comes to my pancakes, I only eat three parts, the reason is because they are filling. and I don't hold back on the seasonings. I use butter and maple syrup. I get good maple syrup at home. We argued about this. My wife and daughter like pancake syrup, which is fake. My son and I like real maple syrup. An amber you can use less and get more flavor and that's what I like and there is no substitute for salted whipped butter.

Salt and sweet go well together, this is something my grandmother used all the time and I have great memories of salted whipped butter. that's what I use, it has a really great texture and the saltiness shows through. I always put a little on the bottom and then each layer gets a big dollop of butter, like I said I put a lot on there because I'm a little bit crazy with my pancakes, a good smear on top and then you can drizzle it with your syrup, don't be shy with the syrup, you're going to have to absorb everything and that's what you want to do, look, this is what I want.

You can see the butter is starting to melt and mix with the syrup and it's getting, oh my gosh, this is like the most beautiful pancake shade you've ever seen, warm syrup with melted butter and as I promised, the best way Make pancakes at home, let's try it, make sure with this slice you get a lot of butter, a lot of syrup, don't be shy, make sure you put it in there like we put a lot on the plate for you to eat. ready, all about that biting smile. I'm going to turn this around because I want you to see the slight sponginess that's happening in here.

Look how many bubbles I have in my pancakes. Follow the bubbles. The bubbles are there. It's a pancake. Pancakes from scratch. Not only are they better than the box, but you already have all the ingredients in your house and they are worth the effort, they are so much better, oh my goodness, party.