Hi! This post is 3 weeks in the making.

I’ve been playing around with pancakes for a while now, and finally decided to put everything together into one guide. This covers everything from ratios to shaping to creative applications. For a basic recipe, check this post out and sub our sugar for salt.

Otherwise, Let’s get started!

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Ingredients

Flour: Flour is the primary ingredient, duh…. Traditionally, these pancakes are made with “high gluten” flour (aka bread flour). The extra gluten is supposed to help create a pleasant chewy interior. I’ve made batches with both bread and all purpose flour. Tasters could not tell the difference. However, the batches with bread flour were a bit easier to assemble. The layers stuck together better and didn’t split as easily.

Water: There’s nothing fancy here. 5 parts boiling water to 4 parts ice water. Boiling water scalds the flour, destroying some of the gluten and gelatinising some of the starch, keeping the dough soft (think dumpling dough). Cool water preserves gluten, giving the dough stability. Some recipes call for ice water, others don’t. In traditional pasty (ie pie dough, puff pastry), ice water ensures that the fat doesn’t melt or slow fermentation. Those aren’t concerns here, but there are benefits to using ice water. In my experience, the colder the temperature of the water, the more stable the final dough was. I did a test doughs using room temperature water, a combination of room temp and ice water and room temp and boiling water (left to right)

For reference, here is what the dough should look like

If you notice, room temp water is much smoother. This indicates strong gluten formation, which results in a not very flaky pancake. The cold/room temp combo produced an overly sticky dough and the hot/room temp dough broke too easily.

Fat: the fat is what creates the layers and carries flavour. There are two type of fat: saturated (solid at room temperature) and unsaturated (liquid at room temperature). Is there a difference? Yes! 

I made three versions: all butter,  50-50 butter- veggie oil, all veggie oil. 

The all butter came out the crispiest. This is not to say the veggie oil or blended one weren’t good. The increased pliability is an advantage when using pancakes in burritos 🙂

Flavouring: Scallions are the default, but there’s no reason to stop at scallions. I’ve tried sesame sugar, gochujang, garlic and pesto. They all tasted great. The caveat is that “bulkier” items will probably break the dough. (Garlic for example)

There are two ways to get around this. First, discard the aromatic after blooming in the fat. Second, roll the dough thicker.

Technique

Making the dough:

To make the dough, divide the flour into 50-50 two bowls. Mix the ice water in one and boiling in the other. Knead together and rest for 20 minutes at room temperature. 

How long to knead? Enough to have the two doughs come together and not much more. Over kneading encourages extra gluten formation and you’ll end up with a chewier pancake. 

Is resting necessary? Yes. The dough needs time to fully absorb the water. Unrested dough doesn’t form layers 

Shaping:

The secret to flakiness in any pastry is layers, layers, layers. Fat prevents the dough from sticking together and when heat expands the fat, layers separate. Puff pastry and pie dough does this by rolling butter into the flour or dough. Pancakes work by rolling the dough, which means there’s no need to keep the fat cold. This cuts resting time by 1/4 since dough does not have to be chilled. 

(I know ppl say you can freeze pie dough for 20min instead of refrigerating, but whenever I’ve tried, the dough comes out too brittle to use)

Shaping the pancakes is simple: 

 Roll the dough into a rectangle then roll lengthwise (tightly) into a log (like a rug)

Coil in

And flatten the coil into a disk.

There are a couple of things to consider. First, when rolling the dough into a rectangle, there is a trade off between layers and robustness. The thinner the dough, the more layers there will be, but the dough is also more likely to tear. The default is 1/8 inch thick (~ 2 stacked quarters). For bulkier fillings, I’d go for 3 stacked quarters thick. For the final stage, I’d go between 1/8in and 1/4 in thick, depending on the filling and purpose. 

Second, be conservative with the amount of fat used. If it starts to pool when rolling, you’ve used too much.

Too much fat prevents the coil from staying together.

If you notice pooling, just wipe the excess with a paper towel. 

Third, it really helps to tuck the end of the coil under the roll to help it stay together

Cooking

Cooking the pancakes is very straightforward. Heat oil in a pan on medium high heat. Place pancake into the pan and reduce heat to medium. The oil should be hot enough that the dough sizzles when put in the pan. It’s not the end of the world to put the pancake in too early, but the dough will absorb more oil, leading to a greasier pancake. On the other end of the spectrum, cooking spray leads to dry pancakes that tend to burn

As a rule of thumb, the thicker the pancake, the lower the heat should be.

Knowing how long to cook the pancakes is a bit of a guessing game. Mine took ~12 min but this will be more of less depending on how thick. There’s no risk of overcooking, so better safe than sorry. If there’s doubt, turn the heat to low and keep it on for another minute or two. Also, keep heat low BETWEEN cookings.

Serving Ideas

These pancakes are perfect on their own, but that’s not the end all be all. As alluded to earlier, pancakes make great wraps, as in these burritos.

You can also make pockets.

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Ingredients

• 300g flour
• 100ml boiling water
• 80g coil water
• 6-8 tbsp oil (2 for pancakes, rest for cooking)
• salt/sugar, optional
• aromatics, optional

Directions

1. Divide the flour evenly into two bowls. Mix the ice water into one and boiling water into the other. Mix well and combine into one dough. Rest dough at room temperature for 20 min.
2. Divide the dough into 4 even portions. Take one portion and roll into a rectangle 1/8th inch thick
3. Add 1-2 tsp of oil and spread evenly on the dough.
4. Roll the dough like a rug, be careful to soak up any excess. Coil into a cinnamon roll shape. Flatten coil into a disk 1/4-1/8 in thick.
5. Heat 1-2 tbsp of oil in a pan on medium high heat. Place pancake into the oil and reduce heat to medium. Once the pancake puffs and browns (~3-4 min) flip and cook the other side for 3-4 min. Reduce heat to low. Flip and cook for an additional 2-3 min/side
6. Repeat 2-5 for the other three dough portions.
7. Serve and ejoy!

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I hope everyone found this guide useful! Have a delicious week. Until next time, Bye!

• Breakfast
• Chinese