Making Pancakes 15-01-11

8/7/2019 Making Pancakes 15-01-11

1/17


2/17

Bachelors survival skills Cooking - Pancakes

Technical and Vocational Teachers College

2

Subject: Bachelors survival skills

Module: Cooking

Topic: Making pancakes

First release: August 2010

Author: Eric Kluijfhout, to be contacted at

[email protected]

Copyright: This material is licensed under the

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

Unported License, available at

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-

sa/3.0/

In plain language: you can use, adapt and (re-)

distribute this work freely for both commercial

and non-commercial purposes, AS LONG as you

mention the author(s) and release the

materials under the same license.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


3/17



3

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 4

History ..................................................................................................................................................... 4

Cooking utensils and ingredients ............................................................................................................ 5Cooking utensils................................................................................................................................ 5

Ingredients ......................................................................................................................................... 6

Preparing pancakes ................................................................................................................................. 7

Basic recipe ....................................................................................................................................... 7

Preparing the batter.......................................................................................................................... 7

Start baking........................................................................................................................................ 9

Nutritional value .................................................................................................................................... 11

Food groups .................................................................................................................................... 11

Calories ............................................................................................................................................ 11

How many can we eat? ................................................................................................................. 11

Beware of those goodies! .............................................................................................................. 11Dare to experiment! .............................................................................................................................. 13

Pancakes with a filling.................................................................................................................... 13

Vegetable fillings ........................................................................................................................... 13

Fruit pancakes ............................................................................................................................... 13

Meat pancakes .............................................................................................................................. 14

Toppings .......................................................................................................................................... 14

Assignments .......................................................................................................................................... 15

Assignment 1: Bake your own pancakes. ................................................................................... 15

Assignment 2: How many pancakes? ......................................................................................... 15Procedure ...................................................................................................................................... 15

Do it! .............................................................................................................................................. 16

Feedback........................................................................................................................................ 16

Assignment 3: Throw a pancake party! ....................................................................................... 17


4/17



4

Introduction

In this unit you will learn how to prepare your own pancakes. Difficult? Not at all! The basic

pancake only requires three ingredients, and just the most basic cooking utensils to prepare.

Moreover, you can have pancakes as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You want to treat and

impress friends? Go over the top and serve them pancakes with Italian-style filling, meat, or

seafood. And for this one very special person? Try a topping of ice cream, fresh fruits and

cream with chocolate sauce! In other words: preparing pancakes is one of the prime bachelor's

life skills!

HistoryPancakes have been enjoyed the world over since ancient times. According to the internet

encyclopaedia Wikipedia Archaeological evidence suggests that varieties of pancakes are

probably the earliest and most widespread types of cereal food eaten in prehistoric societies

whereby dry carbohydrate-rich seed flours mixed with the available protein-rich liquids,

usually milk and eggs, were baked on hot stones or in shallow earthenware pots over an open

fire to form a nutritious and highly palatable foodstuff.1Our love for pancakes is in our genes

so to say.

1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancake


5/17



5

Cooking utensils and ingredients

Cooking utensils

You can make pancakes with a minimal set of cooking utensils: a bowl, something to stir with

and a flat pan. And of course some sort of a stove.

However, the 'professional' will use the following:

A scale, to measure the correct amount of flour

A measuring beaker, for the right amount of milk

A bowl, in which to mix the ingredients


6/17



6

A whisk for stirring the ingredients into a batter

A flat-bottomed frying pan, preferably with low sides

In case you have no scale and/or beaker, you may use cups for measuring. For the basic

pancake recipe the quantities are quite easy: 1 cup of flour to 1 cup of milk and 1 egg. And

don't forget to add a little salt.

Ingredients

The basic pancake that you will learn to prepare contains just flour, milk, eggs, a pinch of saltand some butter or oil for baking. For North-American style breakfast pancakes you may add

a bit of baking powder and sugar to the batter make your pancakes more fluffy and sweeter.

Flour Milk Eggs butter + salt

Is this basic pancake too plain for you? Then add a special filling or topping. For a light

breakfast a sprinkle of sugar will probably do just fine. You need something more substantial?

Mix sliced vegetables, pieces of ham or bacon, or fruit slices through the batter. Almost

anything goes. Toppings for those with a sweet tooth? Try syrup, chocolate sauce, or ice

cream. More health-conscious? Decorate your pancake with fresh fruits like banana, mango,or any other fruit you may fancy.


7/17



7

Preparing pancakes

Basic recipe

This is the recipe we use throughout this module to explain and demonstrate how to make

pancakes.

The following ingredients should get you enough batter to make about eight pancakes in a 20

cm pan:

200 grams of flour (1 cup) 2 eggs

liter of milk (2 cups)

sprinkle of salt

some butter for baking

Preparing the batter

A good pancake starts with a good batter. In the instructions below on how to make theperfect batter we use the standard pancake recipe that we presented elsewhere.

One of the most common mistakes is to just dump all the ingredients in a bowl, and start

mixing them together. This will result in a lumpy batter, and this is not what we want1!

The proper way to make a good batter is as follows:

Step 1.Make sure you have all the ingredients ready, in the right

quantities.

Step 2.Put all of the flour in the bowl, and make a small hollow

in the middle.


8/17



8

Step 3.Add some salt.

Step 4.Gently pour in little

measures of milk at a

time in the hollow while

stirring. By the time you

have added about half of

the milk, all flour should

be absorbed into thebatter.

Step 5.Now keep stirring till you have a smooth, sticky batter

without any lumps. At this time you should still be left

with half of the milk and all the eggs!

Step 6.Break the eggs and mix them through the batter.

Step 7.Add the rest of the milk little by little while you keepstirring.

Step 8.Keep stirring till you have a smooth batter. By hand, this

should take you some three minutes.


9/17



9

Done! Now leave the batter for some 20 minutes before you start baking. This is a good time

to clean up and prepare any fillings for your pancakes.

1Making a batter for the North-American style breakfast pancake for which you use baking powder, is a totallydifferent story. Here the ideal batter shouldstill contain lumps, otherwise the pancakes will get tough.

Start baking

Batter prepared? Frying pan ready on the stove? Butter or oil at hand? Then you are ready tostart baking your pancakes!

Step 1.Make sure your pan is really hot.

Step 2.Add a teaspoon of butter or

oil to the pan, and make

sure it spreads evenly over

the bottom. When you use

butter it should really sizzle,otherwise your pan is not

yet hot enough!

Step 3.Add just enough batter to

cover the pan with a thin

layer of it. You may have

to wiggle or rotate the pan

somewhat to spread the

batter evenly.

Step 4. Keep the pan on the fire till

you see the top of the batter

starting to get solid. Now

add a little butter or oil to

the top of the pancake, in

the middle.


10/17



10

Step 5.Once the top is completely

solid, turn the pancake with

a scoop. Or for the more

adventurous: try to flip itby tossing it into the air!

The butter or oil you added

to the top in the previous

step will now prevent it

from sticking to the pan.

Step 6.Now and then check the bottom of the pancake with the

scoop to check whether it is getting ready. Nicely light

brown on both sides? Congratulations, you just baked the

perfect pancake!

Step 8.Put your pancake on a somewhat pre-heated plate and

continue with the rest till you finish your batter.

Enjoy!


11/17



11

Nutritional value

Food groupsTo stay healthy, our daily meals need a variety of ingredients from five food groups: grains,

vegetables, fruits, dairy products, and meat/beans. Your basic pancake is made of flour, milk

and eggs, and thus already caters for three out of the five food groups! Add fruits to your

breakfast-pancake and mix sliced vegetable with the batter for your supper-pancake, and in

principle you have covered all five food groups!

CaloriesNext to variety, of course also the amount of food we eat matters to our health: not too little,

and surely not too much! But how much is enough? On average women need a daily caloric

intake of around 2000 Calories1, and men about 2800 Calories. For those of us with a

sedentary life-style this may be somewhat lower. But when you are doing hard physical

labour all day, you may require almost double.

How many can we eat?So, how many pancakes does this add up to? Of course this also depends on your filling

and/or topping, but let's start with our basic pancake. A little arithmetic. For about 8 pancakes

we need:

200 grams of flour. With 340 Calories per 100 grams of flour, this equals 680

Calories.

2 eggs. With about 60 Calories per egg, this equals 120 Calories.

liter of full cream milk. With 67 Calories per 100 ml, this equals 335 Calories

This totals 1135 Calories. As this amount of batter should allow us to make 8 pancakes, this

leads to 1135 : 8 = 142 Calories for a single plain pancake. So if we were interested in caloricintake only, the average women could eat up to 2000 : 142 = 14 pancakes a day, and men

almost 20 pancakes a day! In contrast to popular belief, this makes pancakes a fairly low-

calorie dish.

Beware of those goodies!Once you start adding fillings and toppings to your pancakes however, things start to changerapidly! Adding some sliced vegetables to the batter is still a good strategy. Your average

vegetable pancake, which also tends to be somewhat thicker and thus requires more batter,

may still contain less than 200 Calories. A banana and apple pancake? Count on 200 Calories.Adding some butter and a spoon of sugar as a topping? Well beyond 200 Calories. Adding


12/17



12

four slices of bacon? You are now in the 300 Calories range. And what about that 'very

special friend pancake' with two scoops of ice cream, whipped cream and a liberal serving of

real chocolate sauce? Start counting at 700 Calories!

1Beware: 1 Cal = 1 kcal = 1000 cal


13/17



13

Dare to experiment!

Pancakes with a fillingWhen preparing pancakes with a vegetable, fruit or meat filling It may be a good idea to use

just slightly more batter than for a 'plain' pancake. This is to make sure the whole thing sticks

together and doesn't come apart when you turn it! The 'flip in the air' trick may prove

especially useful in this case. But make sure no part of the pancake sticks to the pan before

you try thisyou do not want half of your pancake rotating in the air, with the other half

stuck to the pan!

Vegetable fillings

Cut the vegetables of your liking in thin slices. For certain vegetables it may be a good idea to

first cook the slices brieflybut make sure they do not become too well cooked/soft. Mix

them through the batter, or add them at the same moment that you poor the batter into the pan.

Fruit pancakes

This will work best with fairly firm fruits, like apples, pears, papayas, mangos, bananas etc.

Cut in thin slices and mix through the batter, or add at the same moment that you pour the

batter into the pan.


14/17



14

Meat pancakes

Use sliced meatham, baconor even sliced sausages. Add the pieces of meat to the pan,

and then poor the batter over them.

ToppingsToppings may vary from simply some sugar, to fresh fruits to ice creamor all of them!


15/17



15

Assignments

Assignment 1: Bake your own pancakes.

Use the basic recipe presented elsewhere in this module to bake your own pancakes. Be sure

you have studied the sections on how to make a good batter and how to bake. Then go ahead!

Use the checklist below in case your pancakes are not what you expected them to be ..

# Problem Reason and possible solutions

1 Pancake sticks to the pan This is not uncommon for the first pancake, and is due to

the fact that the pan has to 'settle'. Scrape any remaining

pancake parts from the bottom, and add oil or butter. If the

problem persists, possible reasons could be:

1. The bottom of our pan is scratched/damagedusea pan with a smooth bottom.

2. You did not apply enough oil/butterespeciallywith the first few pancakes you bake, don't be too

sparing.3. Your batter is too 'thin'the amount of milk is too

high in comparison to the amount of flour.

2 Pancake starts smoking while the

top is still fluid

You used too much batterpoor just enough into the pan

so that it just covers the bottom with a thin layer.

3 Pancake takes long to finish, and

is leathery

The pan is not hot enoughturn up the fire

4 Pancake falls apart and is rather

light-coloured

The pancakes is not well-bakedturn up the fire.

Assignment 2: How many pancakes?

Compute how many pancakes you have to eat a day to meet your personal caloric needs. First

read the 'Procedure' section below, then carry out the exercise, and finally check the feedback

Procedure

Your caloric needs can be computed with the Harris Benedict equation. This is a calorie

formula using the factors of height, weight, age, and sex to determine your Basal MetabolicRate (BMR)the amount of calories your body needs per day while resting.


16/17



16

The formula to compute your BMR is:

For men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X weight in kg) + (5 X hight in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)

For women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X weight in kg) + (1.8 X hight in cm) - (4.7 X age in

years)

As usually you are not resting the whole day, your BMR has to be corrected for the type of

activities you perform during the day to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure

(TDEE). You can calculate your TDEE by multiplying your BMR by your activity multiplier

from the chart below:

Your lifestyle Meaning Multiplier

Sedentary little or no exercise, desk job 1.2

Lightly active light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk 1.375

Moderately active moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk 1.55

Very active hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk 1.725

Extremely active daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e

marathon, contest etc.

1.9

Do it!

1. Using the above procedure, compute your BMR:

2. Compute your TDEE: ...................

3. Now check the section on 'Nutritional value' of pancakes for the number of caloriescontained by one basic pancake. What does this tell you about the number of pancakes

you have to eat a day to meet your TDEE?

4. Check your answer against the feedback section below

Feedback

For men the outcome should be somewhere between 11 pancakes per day (when you are

short, light-weight, older, and have a sedentary lifestyle) and 24 pancakes per day (when you

are tall, heavy, young, and have a very active lifestyle).

For women the outcome should be somewhere between 9 pancakes per day (when you are

short, light-weight, older, and have a sedentary lifestyle) and 16 pancakes per day (when you

are tall, heavy, young, and have a very active lifestyle).


17/17

Making Pancakes 15-01-11

Documents

Transcript of Making Pancakes 15-01-11