Pancakes

[Shule]

Well, the first pancakes were a disaster. The batter was too dry, so I added more water. I though that I was close, but as soon as I dropped some batter on the griddle, I instantly saw that it was still too thick. The finished product tasted good, but they rose up to almost an inch thick. They would likely have a good r-value as basement window insulation, before the critters would get to it. I'm not wasting any blueberries until I get the batter right.

I haven't made pancakes in about a decade, and it's not like riding a tricycle.

I know the feeling. I've been trying to reinvent the pancake recipes of my youth that seemed second-nature at the time, but I keep inventing new kinds of pancakes instead (maybe it's because I'm determined to use baking soda instead of baking powder). However, my latest invention was edible, this time, and might be of interest to you. I didn't use buckwheat, but it was 100% whole wheat, as far as flour goes. The reason it may be of interest is that the pancakes were super thin and tasted kind of like crepes. I think the secret to making them thinner was to use more eggs (and more water, of course). Here's the recipe (it did require me to spread the batter out thinner manually with a spoon after putting it on the pan, though, which is the drawback--but it worked, and they tasted good; they're sweet with this recipe; not sure if the brown sugar impacted the thickness; I used the brown sugar for its low pH, and to prevent that bitter baking soda flavor):

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 heaping 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaping 1/8 teaspoon iodized salt
0.25 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
A few tablespoons avocado oil
Water (enough to make it the right consistency; I didn't measure)

I cooked them on medium heat on a 12" cast-iron pan.

In retrospect, we don't have an eighth of a teaspoon; it was probably a fourth. This was on March 31st, so . . .

Instead of driving that other thread further off-topic, I'm starting a new one about pancakes.

Anyway, @Tormato, I discovered the solution to my pancake problem. I went under the house in our crawlspace^ the other day, and discovered a 4-gallon bucket full of pancake mix (probably from 1987). We used to have a bucket just like that in the 80s, before I started making my own pancake mix (which tasted about the same as the pancakes from the bucket mix).

^I had been avoiding the crawlspace for many years, since the last time I went down there, it had black widows and their webs around the entrance. I've since made friends with spiders, though, and I was determined because we were out of canning jars (we had more under the house). FYI, I only found one living spider under the house; it looked like a young widow of some kind. All the dead spiders I saw weren't black widows; they were the kind of spider that likes to live in our bathroom.

So, I cooked some of it up, and the baking powder was still very active. The pancakes tasted delicious (but quite different from the ones I remembered). I believe it's a homemade mix, though, because I smell non-instant powdered milk in it. So, I probably have perhaps a few hundred pancakes worth of mix left in the bucket. Maybe I'll figure out a good recipe by the time it's used up. These ones aren't whole wheat, though, but they're good.

Anyway, I didn't know baking powder could last that long. The mix would have had baking powder in it instead of baking soda. It bubbles like it has a lot of leavening in it.

[PlainJane]

Wow, this gives all sorts of mostly scary visions to my mind’s eye.

[worth1]

How is it that I can make good pancakes every time from scratch.
And with no fancy ingredients.
Give me a flour tortilla mix baking powder and water and I can make a pancake.
Less water and you've got a biscuit.
Even less water and you can make a tortilla.

[Tormato]

Wow, this gives all sorts of mostly scary visions to my mind’s eye.

So then, what's one more?

[bower]

Oh my, Shule...!!! That reminds me of my own spooky box of cake mix.. except when we finally ate it, it was horrible!!!
So that 35 year old item is quite a score....

Now that I think of it, I've eaten quite old commercial pancake mix from an opened box, and it seemed to stay good rather well. Couple years in that case I think.

[Shule]

Here's my next attempt:

- 1 cup very old whole wheat flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon iodized salt
- water
- 1 beaten egg

Instructions:
- Mix it all up in one of those blue glass transparent bowls.
- Heat a 10" cast-iron pan to 6 on the top left burner (that's one of the big ones); then turn down to 5 after a while; 5 is medium
- Oil the pan with avocado oil (the kind of oil probably doesn't matter as long as it doesn't smoke)
- Spread any pooling batter out further (it should be easier than with the previous crepe-like recipe; I think that's just something you have to do with whole wheat; it didn't feel like a drawback here).

Analysis:
This yielded 3 medium-large pancakes. The previous recipe yielded a lot more, but these were bigger and thicker (not to say they were thick).

This actually bubbles a fair amount (not large or round bubbles, though) despite being whole wheat (unlike the other recipe); I suspect the reason is that there is no oil in the batter, and that I used more baking soda compared to flour than in the previous recipe.

The flavor and texture is pretty good (but not crepe-like, as with the previous recipe). They hold together decently while flipping (the previous ones didn't as well, if I remember right). When eating them, however, they fall apart more easily than the previous recipe, though (which held together very well on a spongey sort of way, as you might expect crepes to hold together).

Note that adding the egg in this recipe was more for nutritional value and flavor than because I thought it was necessary to make pancakes (but I haven't tried making pancakes without eggs for a long time in order to tell you what the real difference is, when fried; that's an experiment for another day).

There did not seem to be an unpleasant baking soda taste, interestingly, despite more baking soda and no brown sugar. Maybe that's because I used syrup, but another taster who did not use syrup who usually doesn't like baking soda instead of baking powder had no problem with it, and liked the pancakes.

[Shule]

I tried yesterday's recipe with three eggs instead of one in order to see what difference eggs make (the ¼ teaspoon of salt was overfilled, though; I also kept the heat on 6 the whole time, and oiled the pan with extra virgin olive oil, which did smoke on the second application until I put batter in it). Here's what happened:

The pancakes got two to three times thicker, and held together better; it was easier to make bigger pancakes (with a longer diameter), without much worry about what might happen when I flipped them. The recipe yielded three large pancakes. They probably didn't have as fluffy of a texture in the mouth as the ones yesterday, though.

There's a striking difference in flavor without syrup. They taste more salty than sweet (of course, there's no sugar in them, and there is salt; so, that makes sense).

The other taster (who ate them without syrup, as usual), liked them.

[Lemonboy]

I like to add a couple tablespoons of melted lard too. Let it cool a bit before stirring it in though. Probably a teaspoon and a half for a recipe using only a cup of flour. Also, if you want them a little sweeter try adding a spoonful of honey or sugar.

[worth1]

Go down and buy a big bag of flour tortilla mix to make pancakes.
Just add a little more baking powder or soda.
Mexican mothers and grandmothers do this all the time.
Biscuits too.

[Lemonboy]

It may be a staple in Texas, but I've never seen it here. I have a hard time just finding masa for tamales.

[Shule]

@worth1

I didn't know flour tortilla mix for purchase existed until this thread. I'll have to keep an eye out for it, if it's available. Masa harina is something I've heard about, and seen in stores, though.

So, what are the pancakes and biscuits made with it like, compared to regular white flour pancakes and biscuits?

[worth1]

@worth1

I didn't know flour tortilla mix for purchase existed until this thread. I'll have to keep an eye out for it, if it's available. Masa harina is something I've heard about, and seen in stores, though.

So, what are the pancakes and biscuits made with it like, compared to regular white flour pancakes and biscuits?

Flour tortilla mix here take up as much shelf space if not more than regular flour.
More masa harina than cornmeal.
The pancakes and biscuits are really good you just have to experiment with the amount of extra baking powder.

[Tormato]

No flour tortilla mix, here, either. The only thing that could be rarer would be a tortilla press. I've looked, and asked.

Plain and simple, I like buttermilk, buckwheat, and blueberries (small, wild ones) in my pancakes. The batter has to be made by scratch.

[Lemonboy]

Well now I'm going to have to order tortilla mix from Wal-Mart or Amazon and make pancakes. Maybe a tortilla press too.

Or maybe make my own since the ingredients seem to be flour, baking powder, salt, and lard.

[worth1]

Well now I'm going to have to order tortilla mix from Wal-Mart or Amazon and make pancakes. Maybe a tortilla press too.

Or maybe make my own since the ingredients seem to be flour, baking powder, salt, and lard.

You'd be better off just making it.

[Shule]

How do they powder lard?

[worth1]

How do they powder lard?

Just cut it up with a pastry knife or blender thing like you would to make a pie crust but with baking powder too.
It's basically bisquick but a lot cheaper.

[Shule]

Well, I've finally found a whole wheat pancake recipe that more than satisfies me. It's actually pretty much the last one I mentioned:
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- A slightly over-filled ¼ teaspoon of baking soda
- A slightly under-filled ¼ teaspoon of iodized salt
- 3 eggs
- Water

Mix the eggs with the flour before adding water (so the eggs stretch apart and mix better). Add water; and mix. Cook on 6 (just above medium) with avodado oil.

[worth1]

Leave out the baking powder and you have pasta.

[karstopography]

My kids liked zoo and aquarium pancakes. Elephants, camels, sharks, starfish, whatever shape I could conjure up. We ate a lot of pancakes. Thin batter with a bit more oil in the pan to crisp up the edges. Only real maple syrup was allowed and we preferred the grade B dark amber. I cannot stomach fake maple syrup.