The Pancake Perfected

Kate · Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2005 7:25 pm Post subject: The Pancake Perfected

The pancake, perfected

Traditional Swedish recipe has more eggs, more butter, more sugar. Gonna argue with that?

January 7, 2005

By MARK BITTMAN / New York Times News Service

There is a point at which pancakes become closer to dessert than breakfast, or perhaps they become an excuse for substituting one for the other.

The standard breakfast pancake is a fairly lean mixture that goes by what you might call the rule of 1: 1 cup each milk and flour, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and maybe a tablespoon each of sugar and melted butter. Most people compensate for that leanness by adding butter and maple syrup at the table.

A rich pancake, such as those often served in Sweden, takes those proportions and skews them, boosting the proportion of eggs, butter and sugar at the expense of flour.

As with brownies or cookies, when you increase fat and sweetness and decrease filler — that's what flour is, after all — the results are indisputably better. And when you eliminate baking powder, using beaten egg whites instead for leavening, you both add and subtract: The pancakes are supremely light and airy, and the slightly chemical taste of baking powder is absent.

The Swedes use a special pan for these plattar, as they are called, so that they are all the same size, which is smaller than American pancakes. But I use a tablespoon, which works almost as well.

Once you add the flour, do not stir the batter any more than is necessary to combine the ingredients; you will cause the gluten to develop too much and make the pancakes tough. The egg whites should be stirred in gently and not especially thoroughly. Cook these pancakes quickly, over fairly high heat, in a lot of butter.

The pancakes are so rich and delicious they can be served with nothing more than a dusting of powdered sugar. But they are sweet enough so that you can serve them (as is often done in Sweden) with lingonberry or other tart preserves (cranberry sauce is great) or even a little lemon juice.

Yogurt or sour cream also complement the pancakes nicely, as do any sweet jam or preserves or, for that matter, whipped cream.

The swedish pancakes recipe is here :
http://www.yummyfood.net/recipes-id215.html

Guido who just tried it..... It's gooooooood!
_________________
A closed mouth gathers no feet.