I hated pancakes! They always have this eggy smell  (no offense egg, I love you but your smell puts me off sometimes), are chewy and most times in a bid to get their round shapes, the insides always end up raw while the outside is already brown. To curb this, I add pepper (remember my coconut pancakes), add more water to get a thin batter then proceed to spread it around the frying pan to get a thin pancake (in my mind I just converted it to crepes 🤦‍♀️) and that's the only way I can eat pancakes.

Little did I know that I was doing it all wrong, from the recipe, to the preparation and that's crepes part? that'll be a talk for another day.

You might be wondering, “even small pancake needs recipe too?” Of course, it does. I used to just dump flour and Co. in a bowl, mix and fry but not until sometime this year, I finally got this perfect recipe, the pancakes was so good, very light and fluffy, you needed to see my leap of joy and the way I was gobbling it down. I had to rush and update my Basic Pancake Recipe , you might want to go check it out again, I wrote that when I haven't seen the light 😂. Really, following the right recipe restored my lost love for pancakes.

But is that all there is to getting the perfect pancakes, absolutely not, otherwise what will explain my pancake still looking like this 👇 even with the perfect recipe. 

Just like your cake batter, overmixing the pancake develops gluten and deflates the air in the batter. This in turns leads to a dense, chewy pancakes and nobody loves that. The goal is to just mix until the wet and dry ingredients are combined, just until you can't see any dry or floury spots on the bottom or sides of the bowl (a few lumps are fine). Cushion-soft, fluffy, tender, lighter (you name it) pancakes will be the result. 

Using pans with sloppy sides never do well for pancakes, you need to maintain that nice shapes. You also need it to have space to flip the pancakes with ease without any mess. The smooth and non-stick surface is obviously for the pancake not to stick (more on that below!). 

Most fails some people even me encounter while making pancakes is burnt pancakes. Using low heat ensures the inside cooks thoroughly by the time the outside starts to brown. At some point, I do turn off the heat before pouring the pancake batter , then turn it back on. 

Read Also: Coconut Pancakes

This is it! This is what changed my pancake game from blaa to wow appearance-wise. Butter contains milk solid and has a low smoke point hence its burns easily, gets bitter and leaves some burn bits on your pan which in turn makes other pancakes you make to stick. (moreso when you use too much and on high heat). To prevent this, we use oil even though it won't taste as flavourful as butter, it does, however, fry pancakes to a perfect, even golden brown. 

Avoid using in excess, this fries the pancakes that by the time it's done, the edge become crisp even crunchy. 

In my experiment, I fried about 3 pancakes brushing the pan with oil each time I want to put the batter. This gave me the pancake pictured below. 

Then I stopped, I continued frying without putting any more oil in the pan and I got this.

 

I know you might be thinking, won't it stick or burn? Honestly it didn't. That's why I emphasized on using a smooth/nonstick pan. Also remember in the recipe some oil butter was added plus you've coated the pan with oil before. 

As the pancake batter is cooking, you'll notice bubbles forming on the surfaces, don't flip until all the bubbles burst and look more like holes. This prevents splashes of batter and the risk of them loosing their round shapes. 

Just gently slide a thin spatula underneath the pancake, dislodge any sticking part and make sure it is centrally placed, lift about three inches, and then briskly turn your wrist. Your pancake will land right where you picked it up, with no smear in sight, then continue to cook the other side.