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Comment by al_borland | Hacker News Reader

How is dumping a cup of Krusteaz and water into a bowl producing more dirty dishes than adding flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt to the same bowl? A couple measuring spoons?

The upside of having the ingredients is that you don’t need to specifically plan for pancakes. You can make them at the drop of a hat, along with many other things, as long as you keep the staples on hand.

My mom always makes pancakes from scratch, and she seems to have them together in just a few minutes as well. Last time when she asked if I wanted some, I said I didn’t want to be a bother, and she went on about how easy they are.

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By the time I’ve soured some milk (to take the place of the buttermilk in the mix) and measured out the oil, I’ve spent five minutes and used a pyrex measuring cup or two that I didn’t otherwise need. That’s apart from getting out the kitchen scale, dragging out the dry ingredient canisters, taking the time to weigh or measure everything… I just don’t get it. Why do I have people telling me I should dirty even one extra dish? Or spend even five extra minutes? All so I can, what? Be proud of my homemaking skills? I’d rather be coding a side project, thanks. Your mom is more than welcome to make her pancakes from scratch. I’m glad she enjoys it. Personally I prefer Krusteaz. I do not understand why I am getting pushback on this.

I'm not pushing back at all, especially since I made two pancakes from Krusteaz this morning. What I like about Krusteaz is scaling down to 2 small pancakes without thinking about the proportions.

But when I'm on the ball, pancakes from scratch are really not much more trouble. My trick is that precise measurements don't matter. I eyeball all of the measurements into a big measuring cup, and it works just fine. From what I've read, precisely measured ingredients are a modern invention anyway. How would humanity have spread to all corners of the world, if they had to weigh the ingredients for their pancakes?

Yogurt instead of buttermilk.

> From what I've read, precisely measured ingredients are a modern invention anyway.

I believe this is where the cup measurement came from. Baking is all about ratios, so you could take any (drinking) cup you happen to have and use it to measure your various ingredients, as the ratios will all work out by using the same cup.

I recently saw a very expensive chef’s spoon that was supposed to be a perfect teaspoon(?) and had various other features. It was sold out. Out of curiosity, I went into my drawer, pulled out my normal spoons I eat with and compared them to what my measuring spoons held. It was the same. I just use my normal spoons to measure now. Good enough. I can then use the spoon to eat with, depending on what it is.

That is a good point - scaling down to pancakes for one is a great use case for mixes.

As it happens, my preference for Krusteaz is not all convenience; they’re also what I grew up eating, and they’re still my favorite. I bake a lot from scratch, mostly cookies and bread with the occasional cake, and pancakes are the one thing I never make from scratch because I’m tired of trying everyone’s mom’s amazing recipe and finding it meh. (I’ll gladly spend a weekend morning making these amazing waffles, though: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/light-and-crispy-waffles)

I agree precise measurements don’t matter at all if you’re not too particular about how the finished product comes out. If you have strong preferences about how your baked goods taste, or you want to be able to communicate a recipe to someone else in a reproducible way, that’s when precise measurements start mattering. Kitchen scales were commonplace in England by the Victorian era, so it depends on your definition of “modern.”

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