How did I ruin these pancakes?

Cafe Society
1

Last week my boyfriend bought pancake mix from the store and I chided him for not making them from scratch. “They’re so easy!” To prove my point I got up early to make a pancake feast before he went to work, and as a result ended up with a pile of utterly inedible, yellow sour-flour tasting monstrosities. :smack:

I don’t eat pancakes much, and the only other time I made them from scratch, I got the recipe from the SDMB. The pancakes were wonderful - perfectly light and fluffy and cooked up like a dream. I neglected to write down the recipe, figuring I could always do a search for it later.

Of course, it didn’t occur to me that there are hundreds of Buttermilk Pancakes recipes on the Dope! So after a quick search I found a thread and decided on this one :

But wait? Aren’t pancakes supposed to have eggs? I couldn’t remember if I used them the last time. Since the next post in the same thread included them, I decided to adjust the first recipe by beating one egg with the buttermilk and omitting the oil, assuming that the yolk would provide the required fat. Other than adding a scant 1/4 tsp. of vanilla, I kept the recipe the same.

I noticed that when I beat (with a fork) the egg and buttermilk together, it got very thick and “curdly.” It didn’t look right to me, but I don’t often use buttermilk, so I figured it would be okay.

My sifter was in the sink, and I didn’t have time to wash and dry it before cooking, so I just stirred the dry ingredients well with a fork to combine and get the lumps out before adding the wet ingredients.

This made a small amount of very thick batter, so I thinned it with more buttermilk. It still didn’t seem like enough for two, so I added more flour, then more buttermilk. Then I figured the proportions were off, so I threw in a pinch more baking powder. With all of this mucking about I stirred the batter more than I normally would, but it wasn’t completely smooth.

When the batter seemed the right consistency, I put about 1/2 cup on a buttered hot griddle. Because the griddle is new, it may not have been as hot as it should have been (it seemed to take a while to heat up) and the batter sat in rather lifeless pools for what seemed like a very long time. They resisted bubbling on the top, but finally they were semi-bubbly across the top and a bit dry on the edges, and I flipped them.

They were an off-yellow on the top, not brown at all. And when I finally dared try a bite, they tasted absolutely awful - doughy, with a strong, slightly sour floury flavor. I tossed the whole lot in the trash and made breakfast burritos instead.

You can probably identify a number of things I did wrong here, but mainly I’m wondering WHY - I mean chemically - they turned out so bad. Was it adding the egg? The proportion of flour to fat to leavening? The lack of sifting? The beating of the egg and buttermilk? Could the buttermilk have been bad (I just bought it this morning)?

Contrary to what it may seem, I’m not a complete idiot in the kitchen. Usually what I cook turns out perfect when I follow a recipe and at least pretty good when I make it up, so I’m surprised that one little ingredient change (egg for oil) could turn something from light and fluffy to disgusting.

I’d love to take away something from this experience besides a bad taste in my mouth, so learn me what I done wrongly.

2

Baking soda (either alone or with baking powder) is usually used as levening when the liquid in the recipe is buttermilk. The bubbling reaction with baking soda and an acidic substance is what lightens the batter. That could have been part of the problem.

3

Sounds like you didn’t have a good plan,and then panic set in, and any balance you might have had went out the window when you started to add this 'n that.

   Here's what I was taught. I call them "ONE" pancakes,because;

    1 egg
    1 C flour
    1 Tblsp oil or butter
    1 C milk or buttermilk
    1 Tblsp sugar (I use honey)
    1 tsp baking powder
    1 tsp vinegar if you don't use buttermilk

 ....give a basic easy pancake you can easily scale up proportionally and can riff on by adding a mashed banana,substituting some yoghurt for the milk,etc.
  
    Mix the dry ingred., mix the wet ingred.,mix the two just barely enough,and if you can let the batter sit for twenty minutes,more the better.

   I don't sift flour for pancakes and never had a problem.
4

Here’s a pancake recipe for comparison purposes. Seems like the dope recipe was off on proportions which you compounded by omitting the oil.

5

I’m with freckafree. If you’re making your pancakes with sweet milk, you use baking powder. If you’re using buttermilk, it needs to be baking soda, or a combination. IANA chemistry-whiz, but apparently the different acidity levels (or something) need different things to produce the “rising” action.

6

Okay, but I did indeed use both Baking Powder and Baking Soda. And the pancakes did rise, but not as quickly nor as lightly as they should have.

I suspect that it’s the addition of the egg that made them doughier, but since so many pancake recipes include eggs, then I wonder what other ingredients I should have adjusted to accommodate the egg. More/less flour? More/less buttermilk? Should I not have omitted the oil?

What I’m mostly interested in may be an unanswerable question - what precisely caused the various unpleasant results. For instance, if the egg caused the doughiness, did the imbalance of buttermilk/flour cause the sour taste? (they kind of tasted like I was eating damp baking soda). Did beating the egg with the buttermilk inhibit some sort of necessary chemical reaction?

I suppose the obvious answer is ‘just shut up and follow the recipe next time’ but I’m looking to understand the proper proportions so if I find my batter is too scant or thick, to know what I can add without ruining the whole thing.

7

As long as the egg was good, the addition of the egg is not the problem nor is beating it in the buttermilk (in fact I’m not sure how the recipe without the egg works). The egg yolk does not eliminate the need for adding oil/fat. The omission of oil created your browning problem. As for the taste issues, I’m not 100% sure. It could be that the lack of oil prohibited the batter from creating the surface crust and left you with a burnt flour taste (kind of like the bitter flour taste you get when you neglect to properly stir a roux and it burns)

8

Paging Angua

9

I looked at the first recipe you posted and could see why you had “thick and curdly”. But that recipe left integral is fine.
Mixing flour with liquid and stirring has a range of effects.For pancakes you want to stay on the minimal side,which is why a rest is a good idea. Any wheat flour will develop gluten when you work it-maybe where your “doughy” came from.
A little trick I learned off the Galloping Gourmet- 1 Tbsp baking soda + 1 Tbsp vinegar (add the soda to the dry ingredints and the vinegar at the end) will raise any pancake batter and the Titanic.
Apropos your questions,I relate this.I’ve been baking bread for 20 years now,at least one loaf a week.Ingredients being flour,water,yeast,oil and salt.The same quantities,the same loaf pan,same oven.Yet I can vary the results by changing the order of addition.

10

Oil makes the cakes and other flour based food more pallatable to people. You don’t cut out the oil and get something close to what you wanted. You did notice the thickness of the batter, but you didn’t add the oil to fix it. Baking powder provides the acid and base needed for bubbles. baking soda only provides the base for the reaction. Baking powder is also mostly dependant on heat during baking to have the desired reaction. Add the oil next time. I let the batter set for half an hour and it works much better. It probably is because of the glutton. You should beat pancake batter as little as possible, to reduce the toughness of the pancake. The more you beat or knead dough wheat flour dough, the tougher the product. You can try cake flour next time to improve them as it contains less glutten. Who wants a tough cake right?

11

I’m fond of saying that baking is tasty chemistry. I don’t make changes to recipes’ chemistry, ie messing with the leavening ratio. They’ll work out next time, I’m sure.