To make pancakes on a griddle, heat the griddle to medium-high heat and lightly grease with butter or cooking spray. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, eggs, and melted butter until a smooth batter forms. Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle for each pancake and cook until bubbles appear on the surface, then flip and cook until golden brown on both sides. Repeat with the remaining batter and serve with your desired toppings.
Whether you have a stove, electric, or a presto griddle in your kitchen, you can make eggnog sugar cookie bars or vanilla pancakes just like Alton Brown does. Do you know what the secret is?
Wait, wait! Eating pancakes is undoubtedly a delightful moment, but trust me, when you don’t know the right technique to cook them, things get messy. Although you can make good pancakes in a pan, when it comes to the best delicious golden-brown flat cakes, tender inside, crispy outside –there’s nothing better than a griddle.
If you have a large family to feed, then a 36” griddle will serve you well. It can prepare up to 28 pancakes at a time.
How to Make Pancakes on an Electric Griddle?
1. Prepare the mixture:
If you want to prepare the basic pancakes, apart from the gluten-free ones, follow the following steps.
- Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl properly, including flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Pour the milk slowly along with mixing the mixture continuously.
- Next, add vanilla, eggs, and vegetable oil and whisk all the things to make a smoothie. Make sure there are no lumps anymore.
- If you still see some lumps, then beat the mixture unless the mixture is smooth and plain. Your batter is ready!
And you know what? The ideal batter is the one that is lighter and easier to pour. So make sure you whip it up a lot to reach that stage.
2. Preheat the griddle
After you’re done making the batter, you have to set your griddle on preheat mode. It’s the most practical and important feature of an electric grill. There’s a temperature controller on a menu bar with low, medium, and high temperatures.
You have to set the temperature up to 375 Fahrenheit or the average heat level to preheat the griddle top. The electric griddle plates heat up so quickly that you’ve to wait for the batter to stand for 5 minutes.
3. Bake the pancakes
When you’re spreading the batter, maintain a distance of at least one inch between the pancakes to turn them easily.
And you know what proves the consistency of a batter? The small bubbles that will form on the batter when the pancake starts boiling show that the pancake is ready to flip. And it usually takes up to three minutes.
You don’t immediately have to flip the pancakes after watching the bubbles rising. Wait for the bubbles to pop and create holes on the top. The holes will remain open on the pancake surface, and the batter fills the surface; it’s time to flip it off.
Turn and see below the corner to check if it has a medium brown color or not. If yes, then turn the pancakes and cook from the other side for two more minutes.
Remember, pressing pancakes down will not cook them faster. Instead, it will mess out with the fluffiness of your pancake. So, don’t let your efforts go in vain, and be cautious while handling the pancake.
4. Get things ready
If you’re done rotating the pancakes once or twice, and everything is well –they have a perfect golden-brown appearance, it’s time to remove them from the griddle.
If there’s a need to prepare the second batch, let the griddle preheat for at least 30 seconds. But this time, you have to lower the temperature by 25 degrees from the thermostat.
Spread chocolate or maple syrup, and if you like walnuts, don’t forget to add them. But wait, if you’re not a fan of maple syrup, there are a lot of varieties that you can add to decorate your pancakes.
You can add some sugar and spice and make everything nice! The lavender and crispy cinnamon sugar, trust me, is delicious. Moreover, honey syrups and coconut chocolate syrups are children’s favorite toppings.
If you’re a chocolate lover and want a whole-chocolate meal, then Nutella, choco chips, or any other chocolate will serve you well. This infusion is miraculous! For making a healthy breakfast, some fruits like bananas, peaches, apples, and pineapples go quite well with pancakes.
Moreover, you can also add peanuts, almonds, and creamy toppings to make the pancakes appetizing. If you want to add a little more to the crisp, don’t forget to add some crunchy toppings.
How To Make Pancakes on a Gas Griddle?
There’s no exaggeration in saying that stove griddles can cook pancakes equally well. But the problem only comes when there’s a need to control the heat precisely. If you’re fairly proficient in that, there’s no need to switch on electric griddles.
As both the griddles involve the same steps of making pancakes, the results are pretty much the same. You get crusty, delicious pancakes with stove griddles too. The only difference is that you need to be quite vigilant with the temperature controls.
As the stove-top griddles use oven burners to spread the heat on the surface, the pancakes need quite more attention. And when you’re up for that, make sure you set the optimal heat at the medium settings. Constant heat is all you need throughout the cooking process, including preheating –that’s the secret of it!
Temperature Requirements For Making Pancakes on a Griddle:
No matter you’re using a stovetop or an electric griddle, pancakes really need a medium temperature. A temperature of 375 Fahrenheit is all you need to cook perfect pancakes on stove-top griddles.
Beware! A temperature slightly higher than this one will lead to an overcooked awkwardly crispy pancake. And if you keep the temperature low, the pancake may remain uncooked from the inner side. So a precise temperature is an important thing.
Using The Cast Iron Griddle:
The cast iron griddle is another amazing way to make delicious pancakes when coupled with a copper diffuser. The copper diffuser ensures an even heat all over the surface of cast iron –that’s the most important thing you need for making pancakes.
Like all other griddles, the cast iron griddles also need a temperature of 375F for preheating and a slightly lower for cooking. They are quite good because the cast iron doesn’t stick to the batter. You get good control over your pancakes.
Using a Wolf Griddle For Making Pancakes:
Before getting into the business, let’s see what wolf griddles actually are. Made of cold-rolled steel of 0.5 inches thickness, the wolf griddles offer great practicality to prepare pancakes, toasts, and many more. It comes in standard steel, not an alloy, that ensures a non-stick surface –pretty good for pancakes.
How will you maneuver a wolf griddle, by the way? Turn the griddle on and rotate the control knob anticlockwise to set a temperature of 170 degrees or 350F. Preheat it for 5-10 minutes and brush the surface with vegetable oil or butter.
Pour the batter and cook it until you see a golden-brown pancake fluffing on it. Don’t forget to flavor it up with maple syrup –the best combination so far.
Want to Add Some Extras to the Batter?
Have you ever tried adding some tidbits, berries, or bacon to the pancake batter? If yes, were you successful in making blueberry pancakes? Sadly speaking, the berries often sink to the bottom and fail to come equally in every pancake.
What do you have to do to ensure the even distribution of these tidbits to every pancake? Don’t worry! There’s no rocket science in it; you just have to follow the right technique. All you have to do is add the extras after you scoop the batter on the surface of the griddle.
Tricks to Make Ultra-High Fluffy Pancakes
Making pancakes isn’t a challenging task but adding some serious fluffiness and highness isn’t easy. Here we are with our three tricks that can help you out in making ultra-high pancakes.
1. Beat the egg whites
We’re going to borrow the technique that gives the airy texture to desserts meringues and soufflés –whisking and beating the egg whites. Take the number of eggs you’re going to add to the batter and separate the yolks from the whites.
Now add the yolks to milk, vanilla essence, and all other wet ingredients used in making the batter. Add this wet mixture to the dry ingredients, and mix it well.
Next, you have to beat the egg whites to form a foam-like consistency. You’ll see the stiff peaks rising higher. Add the beaten egg whites to the batter and start cooking the pancakes.
2. Use carbonated beverage
Another amazing trick that can add a delicious amount of tenderness to the pancakes is using carbonated beverages. You have to replace the liquid content of your ingredients with beer, ginger ale, seltzer water, or cider.
And you know what? It will make your pancakes lighter and more tender than before. But make sure you add the carbonation soon before pouring the batter on the griddle.
3. Give some time to gluten
This trick goes well with all sorts of batters that include the double-acting baking powder. What you have to do is mix the batter and put it into the refrigerator. It’s fine if you refrigerate it for some hours or overnight. But we usually recommend leaving it overnight.
The batter’s gluten will get time to relax, and the baking powder will start forming bubbles. But make sure you don’t stir the mixture again after the rest, or else all the bubbles will deflate –all the efforts will go in vain.
Pancakes Cooking –A Physical or Chemical Process?
When the object’s identity is changed, the process is known as chemical. However, if the identity is the same and only dimensions are changed, the process is physical. The cooking of a pancake is a chemical process because there’s a visible change from a liquid batter to a solid golden-brown pancake.
But wait, there’s more! What if you cut a pancake into two pieces? What sort of change is it? Of course, now it’s a physical change because the full-circle pancake has now turned out into a semi-circle shape.
Related: How to Drain Pasta The Right Way?
Important Tips for Making Perfect Pancakes!
Here we go with some more fascinating tips to make the pancakes delicious.
- The pancake batter should be smooth and thinner so that it will be easy to pour.
- No matter whether you use vegetable oil or butter, the griddle top should be adequately greased.
- Please don’t touch the pancake soon after flipping it, or else you’ll have to compromise the bubbling texture.
- Avoid over-beating the batter because some lumps are still better than a sticky, rubbery mixture that results after over-beating.
- Make sure you are using fresh baking powder. Because if the baking powder is old or expired, you’d end up making those flat pancakes –not fluffy or soft at all.
- Don’t forget to give the batter some time and let it sit for at least 15 minutes.
- And you don’t certainly have to worry if your first pancake doesn’t go well. The next ones will for sure get the best heat distribution.
