Making pancakes by Eric Kluijfhout

PANCAKES

Bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s survival skills: Cooking

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Subject: Bachelor’s survival skills Module: Cooking Topic: Making pancakes First release: August 2010 Author: Eric Kluijfhout, to be contacted at eric.kluijfhout@gmail.com Copyright: This material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/3.0/ In plain language: you can use, adapt and (re-) distribute this work freely for both commercial and non-commercial purposes, AS LONG as you mention the author(s) and release the materials under the same license.

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 4 History ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 Cooking utensils and ingredients ............................................................................................................ 5 Cooking utensils................................................................................................................................ 5 Ingredients ......................................................................................................................................... 6 Preparing pancakes ................................................................................................................................. 7 Basic recipe ....................................................................................................................................... 7 Preparing the batter.......................................................................................................................... 7 Start baking........................................................................................................................................ 9 Nutritional value .................................................................................................................................... 11 Food groups .................................................................................................................................... 11 Calories ............................................................................................................................................ 11 How many can we eat? ................................................................................................................. 11 Beware of those goodies! .............................................................................................................. 11 Dare to experiment! .............................................................................................................................. 13 Pancakes with a filling .................................................................................................................... 13 Vegetable fillings ........................................................................................................................... 13 Fruit pancakes ............................................................................................................................... 13 Meat pancakes .............................................................................................................................. 14 Toppings .......................................................................................................................................... 14 Assignments .......................................................................................................................................... 15 Assignment 1: Bake your own pancakes. ................................................................................... 15 Assignment 2: How many pancakes? ......................................................................................... 15 Procedure ...................................................................................................................................... 15 Do it! .............................................................................................................................................. 16 Feedback........................................................................................................................................ 16 Assignment 3: Throw a pancake party! ....................................................................................... 17

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Introduction In this unit you will learn how to prepare your own pancakes. Difficult? Not at all! The basic pancake only requires three ingredients, and just the most basic cooking utensils to prepare. Moreover, you can have pancakes as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You want to treat and impress friends? Go over the top and serve them pancakes with Italian-style filling, meat, or seafood. And for this one very special person? Try a topping of ice cream, fresh fruits and cream with chocolate sauce! In other words: preparing pancakes is one of the prime bachelor's life skills!

History Pancakes have been enjoyed the world over since ancient times. According to the internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia “Archaeological evidence suggests that varieties of pancakes are probably the earliest and most widespread types of cereal food eaten in prehistoric societies whereby dry carbohydrate-rich seed flours mixed with the available protein-rich liquids, usually milk and eggs, were baked on hot stones or in shallow earthenware pots over an open fire to form a nutritious and highly palatable foodstuff.” Our love for pancakes is in our genes so to say. 1

1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancake

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Cooking utensils and ingredients Cooking utensils You can make pancakes with a minimal set of cooking utensils: a bowl, something to stir with and a flat pan. And of course some sort of a stove.

However, the 'professional' will use the following:

A scale, to measure the correct amount of flour

A measuring beaker, for the right amount of milk

A bowl, in which to mix the ingredients

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

A whisk for stirring the ingredients into a batter

A flat-bottomed frying pan, preferably with low sides

In case you have no scale and/or beaker, you may use cups for measuring. For the basic pancake recipe the quantities are quite easy: 1 cup of flour to 1 cup of milk and 1 egg. And don't forget to add a little salt.

Ingredients The basic pancake that you will learn to prepare contains just flour, milk, eggs, a pinch of salt and some butter or oil for baking. For North-American style breakfast pancakes you may add a bit of baking powder and sugar to the batter make your pancakes more fluffy and sweeter.

Flour

Milk

Eggs

butter + salt

Is this basic pancake too plain for you? Then add a special filling or topping. For a light breakfast a sprinkle of sugar will probably do just fine. You need something more substantial? Mix sliced vegetables, pieces of ham or bacon, or fruit slices through the batter. Almost anything goes. Toppings for those with a sweet tooth? Try syrup, chocolate sauce, or ice cream. More health-conscious? Decorate your pancake with fresh fruits like banana, mango, or any other fruit you may fancy. 6

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Preparing pancakes Basic recipe This is the recipe we use throughout this module to explain and demonstrate how to make pancakes. The following ingredients should get you enough batter to make about eight pancakes in a 20 cm pan:     

200 grams of flour (1 ¾ cup) 2 eggs ½ liter of milk (2 cups) sprinkle of salt some butter for baking

Preparing the batter A good pancake starts with a good batter. In the instructions below on how to make the perfect batter we use the standard pancake recipe that we presented elsewhere. One of the most common mistakes is to just dump all the ingredients in a bowl, and start mixing them together. This will result in a lumpy batter, and this is not what we want ! 1

The proper way to make a good batter is as follows:

Step 1. Make sure you have all the ingredients ready, in the right quantities.

Step 2. Put all of the flour in the bowl, and make a small hollow in the middle.

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Step 3. Add some salt.

Step 4. Gently pour in little measures of milk at a time in the hollow while stirring. By the time you have added about half of the milk, all flour should be absorbed into the batter.

Step 5. Now keep stirring till you have a smooth, sticky batter without any lumps. At this time you should still be left with half of the milk and all the eggs!

Step 6. Break the eggs and mix them through the batter.

Step 7. Add the rest of the milk little by little while you keep stirring.

Step 8. Keep stirring till you have a smooth batter. By hand, this should take you some three minutes.

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Done! Now leave the batter for some 20 minutes before you start baking. This is a good time to clean up and prepare any fillings for your pancakes. 1Making a batter for the North-American style breakfast pancake for which you use baking powder, is a totally different story. Here the ideal batter should still contain lumps, otherwise the pancakes will get tough.

Start baking Batter prepared? Frying pan ready on the stove? Butter or oil at hand? Then you are ready to start baking your pancakes!

Step 1. Make sure your pan is really hot.

Step 2. Add a teaspoon of butter or oil to the pan, and make sure it spreads evenly over the bottom. When you use butter it should really sizzle, otherwise your pan is not yet hot enough! Step 3. Add just enough batter to cover the pan with a thin layer of it. You may have to wiggle or rotate the pan somewhat to spread the batter evenly.

Step 4. Keep the pan on the fire till you see the top of the batter starting to get solid. Now add a little butter or oil to the top of the pancake, in the middle.

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Step 5. Once the top is completely solid, turn the pancake with a scoop. Or for the more adventurous: try to flip it by tossing it into the air! The butter or oil you added to the top in the previous step will now prevent it from sticking to the pan. Step 6. Now and then check the bottom of the pancake with the scoop to check whether it is getting ready. Nicely light brown on both sides? Congratulations, you just baked the perfect pancake!

Step 8. Put your pancake on a somewhat pre-heated plate and continue with the rest till you finish your batter.

Enjoy!

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Nutritional value Food groups To stay healthy, our daily meals need a variety of ingredients from five food groups: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, and meat/beans. Your basic pancake is made of flour, milk and eggs, and thus already caters for three out of the five food groups! Add fruits to your breakfast-pancake and mix sliced vegetable with the batter for your supper-pancake, and in principle you have covered all five food groups!

Calories Next to variety, of course also the amount of food we eat matters to our health: not too little, and surely not too much! But how much is enough? On average women need a daily caloric intake of around 2000 Calories , and men about 2800 Calories. For those of us with a sedentary life-style this may be somewhat lower. But when you are doing hard physical labour all day, you may require almost double. 1

How many can we eat? So, how many pancakes does this add up to? Of course this also depends on your filling and/or topping, but let's start with our basic pancake. A little arithmetic. For about 8 pancakes we need:   

200 grams of flour. With 340 Calories per 100 grams of flour, this equals 680 Calories. 2 eggs. With about 60 Calories per egg, this equals 120 Calories. ½ liter of full cream milk. With 67 Calories per 100 ml, this equals 335 Calories

This totals 1135 Calories. As this amount of batter should allow us to make 8 pancakes, this leads to 1135 : 8 = 142 Calories for a single plain pancake. So if we were interested in caloric intake only, the average women could eat up to 2000 : 142 = 14 pancakes a day, and men almost 20 pancakes a day! In contrast to popular belief, this makes pancakes a fairly lowcalorie dish.

Beware of those goodies! Once you start adding fillings and toppings to your pancakes however, things start to change rapidly! Adding some sliced vegetables to the batter is still a good strategy. Your average vegetable pancake, which also tends to be somewhat thicker and thus requires more batter, may still contain less than 200 Calories. A banana and apple pancake? Count on 200 Calories. Adding some butter and a spoon of sugar as a topping? Well beyond 200 Calories. Adding 11

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

four slices of bacon? You are now in the 300 Calories range. And what about that 'very special friend pancake' with two scoops of ice cream, whipped cream and a liberal serving of real chocolate sauce? Start counting at 700 Calories! 1Beware: 1 Cal = 1 kcal = 1000 cal

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Dare to experiment! Pancakes with a filling When preparing pancakes with a vegetable, fruit or meat filling It may be a good idea to use just slightly more batter than for a 'plain' pancake. This is to make sure the whole thing sticks together and doesn't come apart when you turn it! The 'flip in the air' trick may prove especially useful in this case. But make sure no part of the pancake sticks to the pan before you try this – you do not want half of your pancake rotating in the air, with the other half stuck to the pan!

Vegetable fillings Cut the vegetables of your liking in thin slices. For certain vegetables it may be a good idea to first cook the slices briefly – but make sure they do not become too well cooked/soft. Mix them through the batter, or add them at the same moment that you poor the batter into the pan.

Fruit pancakes This will work best with fairly firm fruits, like apples, pears, papayas, mangos, bananas etc. Cut in thin slices and mix through the batter, or add at the same moment that you pour the batter into the pan.

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Meat pancakes Use sliced meat – ham, bacon – or even sliced sausages. Add the pieces of meat to the pan, and then poor the batter over them.

Toppings Toppings may vary from simply some sugar, to fresh fruits to ice cream – or all of them!

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Assignments Assignment 1: Bake your own pancakes. Use the basic recipe presented elsewhere in this module to bake your own pancakes. Be sure you have studied the sections on how to make a good batter and how to bake. Then go ahead! Use the checklist below in case your pancakes are not what you expected them to be …..

# Problem

Reason and possible solutions

1 Pancake sticks to the pan

This is not uncommon for the first pancake, and is due to the fact that the pan has to 'settle'. Scrape any remaining pancake parts from the bottom, and add oil or butter. If the problem persists, possible reasons could be: 1. The bottom of our pan is scratched/damaged – use a pan with a smooth bottom. 2. You did not apply enough oil/butter – especially with the first few pancakes you bake, don't be too sparing. 3. Your batter is too 'thin' – the amount of milk is too high in comparison to the amount of flour.

2 Pancake starts smoking while the top is still fluid

You used too much batter – poor just enough into the pan so that it just covers the bottom with a thin layer.

3 Pancake takes long to finish, and is leathery

The pan is not hot enough – turn up the fire

4 Pancake falls apart and is rather light-coloured

The pancakes is not well-baked – turn up the fire.

Assignment 2: How many pancakes? Compute how many pancakes you have to eat a day to meet your personal caloric needs. First read the 'Procedure' section below, then carry out the exercise, and finally check the feedback

Procedure Your caloric needs can be computed with the Harris Benedict equation. This is a calorie formula using the factors of height, weight, age, and sex to determine your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) – the amount of calories your body needs per day while resting. 15

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

The formula to compute your BMR is: 

For men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X weight in kg) + (5 X hight in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)



For women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X weight in kg) + (1.8 X hight in cm) - (4.7 X age in years)

As usually you are not resting the whole day, your BMR has to be corrected for the type of activities you perform during the day to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). You can calculate your TDEE by multiplying your BMR by your activity multiplier from the chart below:

Your lifestyle

Meaning

Sedentary

little or no exercise, desk job

Lightly active

light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk

Multiplier 1.2 1.375

Moderately active moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk

1.55

Very active

hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk

1.725

Extremely active

daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.

1.9

Do it! 1. Using the above procedure, compute your BMR: …………… 2. Compute your TDEE: ................... 3. Now check the section on 'Nutritional value' of pancakes for the number of calories contained by one basic pancake. What does this tell you about the number of pancakes you have to eat a day to meet your TDEE? …………… 4. Check your answer against the feedback section below

Feedback For men the outcome should be somewhere between 11 pancakes per day (when you are short, light-weight, older, and have a sedentary lifestyle) and 24 pancakes per day (when you are tall, heavy, young, and have a very active lifestyle). For women the outcome should be somewhere between 9 pancakes per day (when you are short, light-weight, older, and have a sedentary lifestyle) and 16 pancakes per day (when you are tall, heavy, young, and have a very active lifestyle).

Bachelor’s survival skills – Cooking - Pancakes Technical and Vocational Teachers’ College

Assignment 3: Throw a pancake party! Complete the plan for your pancake party below, and hand it in to your teacher. Hint: Decide on the number of friends, type of pancakes, and estimate how many pancakes each of your friends is likely to eat.

My pancake party Name: Date: Send invitations to:

Shopping list: