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[email protected] CartGirl563@gmail.com is offline
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Default How do you make spongy pancakes?

On Jul 20, 1:57 pm, "jmcquown" > wrote:
> CM wrote:
> > Andy wrote:
> >> CM said...

>
> >>> I love IHOP pancakes--they are spongy and soak up butter and syrup
> >>> but whenever I make pancakes at home they are dense and "cakey".
> >>> What is the secret to making more spongy pancakes?

>
> >> This seems to be the copycat recipe you could've found everywhere on
> >> the web, if you'd shown some initiative.

>
> >>http://tinyurl.com/3d2mms

>
> >> Andy

>
> > I wasn't asking for a copycat recipe. I was asking what makes pancakes
> > spongy as opposed to cake-like. But thanks for being a complete ass.

>
> You didn't ask what makes pancakes spongy... you asked HOW do you make
> spongy pancakes.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -


No, he asked "what is the secret to making more spongey pancakes".
That's not really "how", I took it as what is the chemistry behind
spongier pancakes vs. denser pancakes.
It's a legitimate question.

He wasn't looking for a copy cat recipe (though that's probably not a
bad way to answer it). One could put the copy cat recipe for ihop next
to the poster's recipe for pancakes to see what the differences are. I
guess that's a way to answer the question. But it's not really
dependant on the poster's recipe. It was more of a general question.

There is chemistry to food. Baking powder vs baking soda, one makes
foods rise, the other makes it spread, I forget which is which. Some
well known examples are Butter makes a tender pie crust, shortening
makes a flaky crust. Butter yilds a tender, cakey cookie, while
shortening yields a crispier one. Oil makes a denser coffee cake or
carrot cake than butter and sour cream makes a moister cake than
either.

So I took the poster's question to be more of a food chemistry
question than a recipe question.

I would think (though this is just a guess) that there's more fat in
ihop's pancakes than a standard at home recipe. thinking about how
ciabatta, an italian bread with a lot of olive oil in the dough, is
spongier and airier than for example, french bread, which has no fat
and has a tighter crumb. It's the oil in the ciabatta that makes it
that way. Pizza dough, same thing. Very thin crust pizza has virtually
no oil in the dough, thicker crusted pizzas have a spongier dough,
those have a lot of oil in the dough.

Southern style biscuits, which are closer to pancakes as far as the
dough goes, are fluffiest when there is more fat and a light touch on
the kneading. So that's my thought.

I think the secret to fluffy, spongier pancakes is a higher fat to
flour ratio and mixing just until combined.