The Secret Ingredient Restaurants Use To Ensure The Best Pancakes
We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how adding cornstarch to your scrambled eggs can make them restaurant-level creamy and smooth.
And now it turns out that there’s a way to make your DIY American-style pancakes taste like you got them from an expensive brunch spot, too.
YouTuber and former chef @SenpaiKai9000, who’s worked in Michelin-starred kitchens, shared a YouTube Shorts video explaining that not only should you cream your eggs and sugar before adding the rest of the pancake ingredients, but you should be using browned butter in the mix too.
Why and how?
Well, creaming the butter and eggs first ― rather than mixing all the ingredients at once ― introduces more air into the batter, making for a lighter, fluffier pancake.
You do this by whipping the sugar and eggs “for a very long time” until pale and fluffy (about ten minutes). @SenpaiKai9000 also adds orange or lemon zest at this point, or says you could opt for “cinnamon or vanilla” if that’s what you fancy.
After adding your flour in three or four batches, ensuring you don’t over-mix, it’s time for the butter. The former chef then makes some clarified brown butter by heating some butter until it foams up, removing it from the heat, and straining it.
“Keep all this cold and when you want to cook [the pancakes], fry it in that browned butter,” the YouTuber advises.
You can then shallow fry the cooled batter in the gloriously toasted dairy “until it gets crazy crispy.” Browned butter’s nutty, rich flavour adds depth and an almost maple-y note to the hot cakes.
The YouTuber isn’t alone
The former chef isn’t the only one who swears by browned butter pancakes.
Baker John Whaite swears by the addition, though he pours his over the crepes rather than frying them in the stuff.
In fact, the King’s chefs themselves use the method for his royal brekkie. They say that the “buerre noisette” (browned butter) “adds great flavour and keeps the pancakes moist.”
Right, I’m off to make some batter...