Hearthfire & Brimstone: Perfect Pancakes Possible

Pancakes made with whipped egg whites and beer can be a sweet addition to your breakfast repertoire. “Have you ever thought of what it might be like to be squashed flat by a pancake, ” the copy on the back cover of Judi and Ron Barrett’s 1978 storybook, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” asks.

As a matter of fact, I have. The book is about a town where giant food falls out of the sky, and it includes an illustration of helicopters trying to pull a giant syrup-slicked flapjack off of the roof of the school. Traditional pancakes are simply too big, too heavy, too sugary.

They promise comfort, but deliver two hours of feeling like a sway-backed old mule hauling a 100-lb sack of flour, followed by an hour of incredulously saying, “Could I possibly be hungry again, The good news is that making truly light, crispy-edged stick-to-your ribs pancakes is only slightly more work than making leaden gut-bombs.

The better news is these pancakes need bubbles, and that means that you now have a perfectly valid excuse to give your children beer for breakfast. I owe the Flapjack of the Future partly to my Cousin Ed, a retired tractor salesman in rural Minnesota. When my great uncle turned 100 several years ago, I was part of a big group of west coast relations who to Minnesota to celebrate.

One morning, I watched as Ed casually poured a can of cheap lager into a bowl of pancake mix. ” I asked, trying not to make a face. Minnesotans are after all, a people who firmly believe canned cream-of-mushroom soup concentrate is an essential food staple. ” he said. And he was right.

His pancakes were light, and delicious; far better than the ones you get by following the directions on the box. I promptly forgot all about it. I’d been on a quest to develop a more perfect pancake ever since I became a “Bonus Mom”; a deal that came with a couple of very willing test-kitchen subjects.

We all agreed on several things: The lighter the pancake, the better. They needed to have custardy centers and crispy edges, and they couldn’t require any planning. I didn’t hit on the right formula until the Saturday morning a couple of months ago, when I remembered Ed’s beer trick. I decided to combine it with the other changes I’d made. They were exactly what I wanted.

The kiddo inhaled them and pronounced them my best effort yet. My Beloved marched around the kitchen crying, “We can rebuild it! We have the technology to build a better pancake! ” And then he explained the cultural reference to me. And then he ate some more pancakes. The best way to make something with a bit more of a slow burn — an extended release pancake, if you will — is by adding protein, and therefore more egg.

This makes the centers custardy, rather cakey. It also makes them lower in carbohydrates, and higher in protein, a change that stops them from expanding in your stomach like a can of Fix-A-Flat. How much could I push it without turning my pancakes into quiche, A lot, as it turns out. By adding in one extra step, which also makes far loftier, faster-cooking cakes, I realized I could triple the amount of protein with no ill effects.

In this recipe, the egg whites are like those Hell’s Angels who keep demonstrators away from veteran’s funerals. They are strong, so the other ingredients don’t have to be. Pancakes usually rely on baking powder to give them loft. It makes bubbles, which fluff the pancakes up. But there is an upper limit to how much you can add, unless you like salty, metallic pancakes.

Share this post