Ultimate Pancake Showdown - Triple Tested #1

My fellow Steemians,

Have you ever began a new culinary experience by trying to find a recipe on an internet search?

Me too and the experience can be exhausting.

I do a simple Google search for a recipe and the number of results I receive is ridiculous. You have a page of results for the same food, most of them claiming to be the best, and the recipes are all very similar but not always identical. You wonder how much difference a little more sugar or a different kind of salt can make. The pressure to pick the right recipe can be overwhelming.

My solution to this problem is this new blog, Triple Tested. For each food I cover here I will pick three recipes from the first page of search results, prepare them all and compare the results. This week is that classic standby, pancakes. Let’s see if you can really go wrong with a pancake recipe.

The ingredients for these recipes were pretty usual: all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, eggs and melted unsalted butter. The most different contender also added vanilla extract and kosher salt instead of table salt. The main differences between all three is in quantities and processes.

The Competitors

Recipe #1 - Pete’s Scratch Pancakes
http://www.food.com/recipe/petes-scratch-pancakes-5170

Recipe #2 - Best Breakfast Pancakes
http://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/best-breakfast-pancakes.html

Recipe #3 - Easy Fluffy Pancakes Recipe from Scratch
http://www.inspiredtaste.net/24593/essential-pancake-recipe/

Let's look at these recipes a little closer.

Recipes one and two are very similar. Per cup of flour recipe two has a bit more sugar, baking powder and salt. The liquids are identical. Recipe three is all over the board, per cup of flour it has more baking powder than one and two, less than a whole egg where the others take one whole egg, and more milk and butter. It also swaps in kosher salt and brings vanilla to the party, a whole teaspoon of it. It definitely was the most different of the recipes I tried and I don’t think it was to its benefit.

There weren’t many surprises in the steps here. Mix dry ingredients, mix wet ingredients separately, when ready to cook pour the wet into the dry and mix until no more large, dry lumps but don’t over mix. Except…

Recipe one actually specified to mix the batter and let it sit at least 10 minutes! That is pancake heresy in my books. But I dutifully followed the recipe. What resulted was a thick and dense final product. Definitely not light and fluffy as promised in the recipe instructions. If you like a pancake that has a little more air in it than this step should definitely be avoided.

Absolutely nothing unusual going on with recipe two and then recipe three the only curve ball was they instructed to warm the milk before mixing with the melted butter. Otherwise they were very typical. Right down to instructing to mix your batter when your skillet or griddle is preheated and ready to go. Fancy that.

So how did these competitors fare when put head to head to head?

Recipe one scored the lowest in texture and flavour. They were dense yet had little substance with an unsatisfying chew. The flavour, when enjoyed plain, was mostly of flour and butter. They looked nice though, rose nicely and had a nice brown on them. If you’re making pancakes just to look at then this is a good bet.

Recipe two was an improvement over the first. A little more baking powder created a slightly fluffier pancake while still having a nice density. This version had a more satisfying chew to it. But even though these had slightly more sugar, a half tablespoon more per cup of flour, they didn’t taste much sweeter. They had the same flour and butter flavour profile of the first recipe. They looked just as pretty as recipe one with a nice rise. After tasting these I was very excited for the final recipe to see if the addition of vanilla really hit them out of the park!

Which it might have, if the recipe wasn’t riddled with its own set of problems. Mostly the thinness of the batter. In proportion to the dry ingredients this recipe had less egg and more liquid than the previous two. Not to mention the addition of a teaspoon of vanilla extract. This resulted in a very thin batter. This thin batter resulted in a thin, limp pancake. Sure it was moist in texture and had a bit of density but didn’t have the rise of the other recipes. The flavour profile was definitely different. The pancakes came out salty with a hint of vanilla, if enjoying them plain. Any topping wiped out the vanilla flavour. I believe the saltiness can be attributed to the larger grain kosher salt. It didn’t seem to evenly distribute into the batter so I had some bites with a crunch of undissolved salt grains.

In terms of disappointment I was three for three. None of these recipes wowed me. Have we as a society come to expect so little from this iconic breakfast item that we have let it settle in mediocrity?

There is a better pancake. It comes from a recipe my parents cut out of a Five Roses Flour cookbook over 30 years ago. For the longest time it was the only pancake I’d eaten and it still hasn’t been matched. It strikes a balance of airy and dense that the competitors today didn’t come close to. It’s sweet with a great chew to it, very satisfying.

This exercise was not a complete waste. I learnt some lessons about making pancakes, like:

• Spoon out batter using a ¼ cup measure. Not only will all your pancakes be the same size, great for portioning out, but they will cook at the same rate.
• If using melted butter let your milk and egg rest at room temperature before beginning. The combination of the cold milk and egg with the warm melted butter results coagulation and not a homogenous mixture.
• You will get a beautiful, even brown crust on your pancakes by using an ungreased, nonstick skillet or griddle. Many recipes instruct you to grease your cooking surface which results in the uneven browning present in this exercise. You’ll get a similar taste regardless, maybe a little richer if you coat your surface with butter. It really boils down to personal preference.

And now I leave you with my pick for best pancake recipe. Enjoy!

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1 ⅓ cup all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 ¼ cups milk
3 tbsp melted butter or vegetable oil
¼ tsp vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
2. In a separate bowl beat egg thoroughly; add milk and stir.
3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and slowly add the egg mixture. Add melted butter (or vegetable oil) and vanilla. Stir quickly until ingredients are just mixed and batter is still lumpy in appearance.
4. Spoon batter onto a preheated griddle set to 350 F or skillet over medium heat, ¼ cup batter per pancake. When bubbles have brown the surface of the pancake and the underside is golden brown it’s time to flip them. The pancake is done when the middle bounces back after pressure is applied, by a finger or the back of a flipper.

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Written by Robin Luis with Photography by Shane Luis