Step 1: Make batter
Making pancakes starts with good preparation: collect all the ingredients and place them near a large mixing bowl. Place the flour together with a pinch of salt in a mixing bowl and mix with a whisk.
Make a well in the center and break in the eggs. Start stirring from the center and gradually add the milk while stirring. Take all the flour from the sides and stir until a liquid but thick batter is formed.
2. Mix ingredients
To make light batter, it is important that you do not mix the ingredients for the pancake recipe for too long. The longer you beat, the more gluten will get into the batter. This gluten ensures that your pancakes become very chewy instead of soft and smooth.
3. In which pan to bake?
A good pan for baking pancakes has a thick bottom, is wide enough and has low sides so that you can easily turn the pancake. The thick bottom ensures that the heat is evenly distributed and the pancake cooks evenly.
4. Temperature
To get the right temperature, place the pan on medium heat for three minutes and let it warm up slowly before adding batter for the first time. Also, every time after baking a pancake, make sure you lower the temperature before you grease the pan again.
5. Patience for pancakes
Pancakes need time to cook evenly in the pan and no matter how much you would like to put a large stack of pancakes on the table within a minute, unfortunately it doesn’t work that way!
The rule of thumb when turning pancakes is therefore: ‘turn the pancake only when the wet batter bubbles have disappeared’. Actually it is enough to turn the pancakes once. If you don’t do this, the cooking will take longer because the pancake will cool down by turning.
6. Bake pancakes in butter or oil?
You can do both, but the real pancake maker recommends liquid margarine. Butter smokes quickly and oil can get so hot that your pancakes burn. Margarine consists of several types of oil and ensures that your cakes brown faster without burning.
7. Vegan Pancakes
Replace regular milk with a vegetable variant, such as soy, oat or almond milk and replace the eggs with applesauce, a chia or linseed eggor simply omit the eggs in the recipe.
For a chia or linseed egg, mix a tablespoon of chia or linseed with three tablespoons of water, let it stand for 5 minutes and add it to the batter instead of an egg.