Light & Fluffy Pancake

Pancake. It is one of the most famous breakfast item on the menu at any diner, and most of you who read this have probably cooked pancake at least once with the store bought pancake mix.

Often, simple food is even harder to cook correctly than complicated food. Because there are not much ingredients which add flavor, you have to cook every single step correctly to perfect all the aspects of the food such as flavor, texture, temperature, color, and others.

For pancake, I think the most important thing next to flavor is the texture. To make it light and fluffy, I am going to separate egg white and the yolk, then make meringue out of the egg white before adding it to pancake barrel. Also, instead of all-purpose flour, please use cake flour which has less gluten and will result in a more tender pancake. For more flavor, I use half & half... yes, "more fat = more flavor". :)

It is a perfect season to garnish your ethereal pancake with beautiful berries and cherries! Those seasonal addition will make the pancakes taste and look better.

Light & Fluffy Pancake
(Yield: 15-16 small pancakes, 3-4 servings / Cooking time: 35 minutes)

Ingredients:
+ 4 ounces cake flour (~1 cup of unsifted cake flour)
+ 2 tsp baking powder
+ 1/4 tsp salt
+ two eggs
+ 1 cup half & half
+ 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
+ 1 Tbsp sugar
+ 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature*
+ extra butter to coat griddle


+ maple syrup to drizzle on top
+ strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or cherries** for garnish

* Microwave the butter just until it is melted, then cool it at room temperature.
** You can use any berries. I used blueberries and strawberries.

Procedures:
1. Mix cake flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk egg yolks and half & half until they are well mixed.


2. Please preheat a griddle... or if you don't have a griddle, you can use frying pan. You don't need to preheat frying pan since it heats up quicker than a griddle.


3. Now, it is meringue time. In a clean bowl*, with a clean balloon whisk*, whip a room temperature egg white until you can see foam. Add 1/4 tsp of cream of tartar and continue whipping. When the egg white doubles in volume, sprinkle sugar gradually in 3-4 batches while whipping the egg white. Egg white will start to gain volume as sugar is added. Whip the egg whites until it reaches shiny and velvety stiff peaks. If egg white starts leaking water and loses the velvety texture, it indicates that you overbeat the egg white - please be careful not to overbeat the egg whites. For this specific recipe, 'under-beating' is better than overbeating.


* If there is any trace of fat on your bowl or whisk, the egg white foam will not form very well. Also, even a small amount of egg yolk will hurt your egg white foam.

4. Mix dry ingredients with egg yolk and half & half mixture from step #1. Do not over-mix it, stirring just lightly with a fork until the dry ingredients are moistened. Then, stir in the melted room temperature butter into the mix.


5. Add 1/3 of egg white foam into the mixture from step #4. Mix it gently to lighten up the mixture. Then, add another 1/3 of egg white foam and fold it into the mixture with a rubber spatula. Fold the rest of egg white foam in to the mixture to finish making the pancake batter. Please fold the egg white foam gently not to deflate the batter too much.


6. Now, coat the preheated griddle with little bit of butter and pour on 1/4 cupful of batter. When one side turns golden brown, flip the pancake and cook the other side until, again, becomes golden brown. I would recommend medium stove heat to cook the pancakes.


7. Remove the cooked pancakes into warm plates and garnish with berries, then drizzle maple syrup on top.

Enjoy~