Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by wsc981 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

wsc981

I like Dutch pancakes and French crêpes a lot. The American style thick pancake is not my thing.

That said, it seems this recipe results in a Dutch style pancake, so I would like to try to prepare it sometime.

When I make pancakes, I usually just use:

- eggs

- flour

- whole milk + water in equal amounts

- cinnamon to taste

- little bit of vanilla extract

- some sugar and salt

The resulting mixture should be slightly thick.

Using whole butter to prevent the mixture from sticking to the pan.

When smoke starts appearing around the pancake, it’s time to turn the pancake around in the pan. Should be baked on medium size fire.

For every pancake add a little butter to the pan, wait for it to melt. For first pancake use more butter.

I love this simple recipe.

View on HN

We call it a Dutch Baby in this house. Not sure why, or where the recipe came from, but i make this every Saturday for my daughter:

Cast iron into a 425° oven as it preheats.

While you're waiting: -whisk 4 eggs. -Add half cup of flour. -Half cup of milk (almond, oat, whole milk all work), warmed up to room temp. -Dash of salt

Whisk until smooth. When oven is ready, pull out cast iron, add 2 tbls of butter and make sure it gets all the sides. Pour in mixture and bake 12 minutes. Turns into a billowy beautiful eggy pancake. Good with maple syrup or savory with cheese and ham.

We call Dutch Baby "Puff Daddy" because I used to make them for my kids and they puff up in the oven. When my kids come home they will still request it from time to time.

When my wife makes crepes, she mixes the recipe the night before in a jug. I don't know why (sorry!) but they turn out delicious and she swears this step is important. Lovely and thin, with a good consistency. I've also no idea if they are legit 'French crêpes'.

The recipe is:

- 1 cup of plain flour

- 1 large egg

- 1 1/3 cup milk (half milk half water usually too!)

- 2 tblspoons of melted butter

The first 3 are combined the night before and whizzed up, then left in the fridge. The melted butter you do on the morning of -- melt it in the pan then tip it into the other mixture and stir it a little. Having made it the night before is ideal if you're visiting a friend in the morning, too.

Your pan technique sounds identical to us : ) ... enjoy!

The main reason you prepare crêpe batter long before you want to use it is two fold: 1. Allows a bit of gluten development (like cold ferment in bread) 2. And (i believe) most importantly: it allows all the air that was incorporated during whisking to escape, resulting in an even batter

Always wondering if you could just stick it in a vacuum pump...

If you want to knock air out of a batter faster just slap the sheet it’s in against the table.

We have lots of regional variations for crepes in France. In mine, we add a sip of white beer or even rum to flavor it, you don't need to add much and it changes everything !

> When my wife makes crepes, she mixes the recipe the night before in a jug. I don't know why (sorry!) but they turn out delicious and she swears this step is important.

I don’t know the details, but there’s an ongoing reaction involving the gluten in the dough that leads to smoother surfaced, thinner pancakes.

> night before in a jug

I recall this is done for galettes which uses buckwheat flour and is typically savoury.

Keeping it longer develops gluten which would make it more gummy I suppose? This is when making tempura you wanna use cold water and minimal mixing so it's crunchier.

that's pretty much the recipe i learned from my grandmother in austria. without the butter though.

except i eventually discovered that it doesn't really matter if i use milk or water. since it is less common where i live i simply stopped using milk entirely.

also my mother puts in sugar in the dough. i don't remember if my grandmother did that, but why bother. you can put enough sugar as topping to compensate.

i had a batch of dough overnight just thus weekend. i could not tell the difference.

i make the dough as thin as possible, unless i include a filling that needs to be baked, like cheese, banana or apple

Letting the batter rest after mixing allows the flour to fully absorb the moisture and for the gluten to relax. Ends up with a better texture. No need to rest overnight as a single hour is enough time. However no one wants to wait an hour in the morning so they make the night before.

For the way me and my wife do thin pancakes, we avoid sugar, I think it makes the pancake stick more to the pan. Less milk is also better and we fry on olive or sunflower oil. And lately we've been using dinkel (spelt) flour instead of plain white flour. I sometimes put in some baking powder, but my wife avoids it.

Yeah Spelt flour is nice. Used to use this as well when I lived in The Netherlands. Haven’t seen it yet in Thailand sadly.

> I like Dutch pancakes and French crêpes a lot. The American style thick pancake is not my thing.

Me too! I have a hard time finding a good crepe anywhere, even NYC.

Try telling someone in the US how good an onion and cheese pancake with mayo is for breakfast!

Thank you for the recipe!

you meant bagel, right ;-)

Same, every sunday is pancake day in our house. It has to be normal butter. The smell, mixed with coffee, is amazing. But we just switched from gas to induction and I'm still dialling the process in again.

Lemon+Sugar is my favourite.

Try with buttermilk. The tartness does good things. If buttermilk is not readily available kefir can be used in a pinch. As it is thinner than whole milk I would skip the water.

We buy kefir for use in smoothies, but always have loads hanging about. It's a great substitute for buttermilk.

Change my mind: American pancakes are just waffles made in a pan.

They are all breads. Waffles have a higher fat content. American pancakes should have butter milk in them and must have baking powder so they rise. American pancakes usually don’t have savory versions like crepes or Asian onion pancakes. I’m sure there’s a savory regional out there.

While the pancake itself is never savory you find pancakes in savory American stuff often enough. The two egg breakfast with meat and pancakes; pancakes used as buns for breakfast sandwich a la the McGriddle. And given the ubiquity of chicken and waffles I would imagine someone has swapped out the waffles for pancakes on a whim.

This is sort of like claiming that a tarp is just a tent without stakes, flaps, and zippers.

Waffles are the more complex product. Someone realized that the best part of a pancake is the crispy edges, so they invented the waffle iron to radically increase the surface area of each pancake.

Put pancake mix in a waffle iron and see if you get waffles?

The only difference is you add a little bit more oil for waffles.

"If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike?"

smoke? or steam?

mmmmh, steamed pans!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com