The Best Pancakes You'll Ever Make _ Epicurious 101

I'm Frank Proto .

I'm a professional chef and color instructor .

And today I'm going to show you the best way to make pancakes at home Frank style .

I'll be going over the techniques to make light , fluffy and airy pancakes .

So you'll never have to eat flat floppy , lifeless pancakes .

Again , this is pancakes 101 .

I make this pancake recipe all the time .

Chances are if you look in your pantry right now , you have everything you need to make them from scratch and you should , they are that much better when you make them from scratch .

First thing I like to do is mix my dry ingredients .

So I have all purpose flour , sugar , salt , baking powder , and baking soda .

The baking powder and baking soda are a must because that's gonna give us our leavening our bubbles and make our pancakes light and fluffy .

So once I put all the dry ingredients in , I get a whisk just to make sure there's no pockets of any one ingredient .

So our dry ingredients are well mixed .

Next , I like to do the wet ingredients .

I have milk , it's measured out .

I have some vegetable oil or some neutral oil .

I have a little bit of vanilla .

I have apple cider vinegar together , the apple cider vinegar and the milk kind of make a buttermilk .

Part of the reason I use the milk and the apple cider as opposed to buttermilk is that whenever I buy buttermilk , I make one thing with it .

It sits in the fridge for two weeks and then I end up throwing it away .

This way .

I always have vinegar .

I always have milk .

I can always make a quick butter milk on the spot .

And then I have some eggs , eggs , not only lend structure , they're actually gonna give us a little fat and a little bit of leavening to our pancakes .

I'm gonna take my whisk and make sure that my wet ingredients are beat up .

So make sure this is mixed really well .

Your yolks are broken up , your eggs are combined .

We have our wet , we have our dry now , we can mix them together .

And here's the thing .

Lot of people will mix pancakes until they are well combined .

I am not that way .

What's happening right now is that the liquid ingredients are starting to activate that baking soda and baking powder .

So I'm just doing the fold .

Make sure it's combined really well and that is it .

I think I've mixed it maybe 2025 times .

We leave it alone .

Lumps are going to be ok here , leave it alone .

This is the last time we are mixing this do not mix it anymore .

I like my batter to be on the thicker side so that we get nice big bubbles and my pancakes are nice and tall .

The batter is mixed .

I have a griddle in front of me .

It's an electric griddle .

I love this thing .

This thing is amazing .

It's not super expensive .

Pans are around .

The pancakes are round and you can't get a lot on there .

But with this griddle , I could probably make about 10 pancakes at a time feed that hungry crowd really quick .

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 .

Uh You can use a nonstick pan or just a saute pan .

But for the most part , this thing works best because you can do a lot at once .

I wanna talk about the fat that I used to cook my pancakes .

I'll probably get a lot of hate for this , but I'm gonna say it anyway .

I like to use whipped salted butter .

This will give a little saltiness and crispiness to my finished pancake .

All right , let's cook these pancakes .

I get a nice heaping dollop of butter on there .

Spread it around .

If your butter gets a little brown , that's ok .

That just means that our pancakes are gonna have a little brown butter flavor and that is delicious .

Make sure you have everything you need .

Close by because this will go fairly quick .

I have my batter but I also have my favorite spoon .

This is actually called the berry spoon .

You can use whatever you want .

Uh People use ice cream , scoops , people use teaspoons , but I feel like I get just the right amount of batter with this .

And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to scoop my batter , try not to disturb the rest of the batter , Get it onto my griddle .

I'm not too worried 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 scooping .

Your pancakes do not be tempted to stir .

I'm picking up from the side , getting a scoop leaving all those bubbles intact in the rest of the batter .

Spread them out a little .

If you want them super round , that's fine .

I really don't care about .

Round pancakes .

Don't stir .

Put your pancake batter aside .

Don't stir .

Don't stare .

I have a lot of butter on my griddle and that's what I want .

I want my pancakes to almost fry around the edges .

I want that edge to be crispy and delicious and soak up as much butter as possible .

I like to use a plastic spatula for this .

Don't use metal for this .

You're gonna get scraped and it's not going to be non stick anymore .

There is a temptation , a temptation to turn your pancakes too quickly .

Stop relax , cleansing breath .

I'm watching for the bubbles on top to start popping through .

You can see there's a bubble about to pop .

There , there's a bubble that popped there .

I want my bubbles to pop up through the pancake and the pancake to be set before I start to flip .

I think they're ready to go when you get under the pancake .

Right .

A lot of times people push it and they the pancake around .

Do you want to get under there ?

Quick push and then flip away from you .

Look at that crispy edge , quick push , flip away if you flip to you , all that butter is gonna splatter on you .

So I like to flip away from myself .

Look at how big and light and fluffy these babies are and crispy right next .

Temptation is to start pressing down on these .

Why ?

What are you doing when you do that ?

You are pushing all of the bubbles out .

Do not push on your pancakes .

Flip them .

Let them be the only thing I will do is this .

Sometimes I'll move them around a little just to soak up some of that .

But a lot of times the first pancake or the first crepe is the fail .

No , no , no , not with my pancakes .

The first pancakes are the best .

They're the Crispiest .

They got the best edges .

They got the best color pancakes are done .

I can tell they're done by this .

When I push on my pancake , they spring back .

If you push on your pancake and it squishes through and you see batter , they are not done .

You want to see some spring .

That's because they're light and fluffy and have lots of bubbles .

Let's put these 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 part of the reason is because they are filling and I don't hold back on the toppings .

I use butter and maple syrup .

Get a good maple syrup in my house .

We argue about this .

My wife and daughter like pancake syrup , which is the fake stuff .

My son and I like real maple syrup a great day .

Amber .

You can use less of it 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 kind of shines through .

I always put a little on the bottom and then every layer gets a huge knob of butter , right ?

Like I said , I put a lot on there because I am a little bit nuts about my pancakes .

A nice smear on top and then you can douse it with your syrup .

Don't be shy with the syrup .

You're gonna have to sop everything up and that's what you wanna do .

Look , this is what I want you to see .

Look at that .

The butter is starting to melt and mix in with the syrup and it's getting , oh my gosh .

Like that is just like the most beautiful pancake pitch you'll ever see melty butter warm syrup .

And as promised the best way to make pancakes at home .

Let's give it a taste .

Make sure with this slice you get plenty of the butter , plenty of the syrup .

Don't be shy .

Make sure you get it on there like we put a lot on the plate so that you'll eat it ready .

Everything about that bite just makes you want to smile .

I'm gonna turn this around because I want you to see the light fluffiness going on inside here .

Right .

Look how many bubbles I have in my pancakes .

Follow the bubbles .

The bubbles are there .

That's a pancake .

Pancakes from scratch are not only better than the box .

You already have all the ingredients in your house and they are well worth the effort .

They are that much better .

Yeah .

My God .

Party foul .