Sho Spaeth is the lead writer and editor at ChefSteps.com. He is also the author of Homemade Ramen, a James Beard Award–nominated cookbook.

Sho Spaeth

Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

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Pancake Parametric

Parametric Analysis

There are so many pancake varieties that we had to winnow the field a little. We decided to focus on common sweet pancakes, the kind you’re most likely to see on a breakfast table. So, you won’t find pajeon or latkes in this parametric. To further control the variables, we chose to limit the liquid addition to just tangy and rich buttermilk. (Never had a buttermilk crêpe? Well, you’re in for a treat!) And, after a fair amount of testing, we were able to isolate a precise pan temperature for cooking all of the pancakes—[f 320]—that provided just enough heat to cook the batter through and get it to floof without overcooking the surfaces.

We developed several new pancake recipes—<a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/buttermilk-crepes">Buttermilk Crêpes</a>, <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/buttermilk-pancakes">Precision Buttermilk Pancakes</a>, and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/fluffy-japanese-pancakes">Ultra-Fluffy Japanese Pancakes</a>—and prepared them side-by-side along with thinner and thicker variations, examining how ingredient ratios, mixing methods, and the inclusion of adjuncts affected performance. We converted the ingredients into baker’s percentages and plugged them into a chart, organized according from thinnest pancakes (crêpes!) to the thickest (super-tall and fluffy Japanese-style ones!).

The Criteria

Buttermilk: Adds acidity, flavor, and, because it&#39;s more viscous than milk or water, texture. As the primary liquid, buttermilk also hydrates the flour.

Eggs: Add flavor and fat. Add tenderness to the pancake crumb, add water to the batter to help hydrate the flour, and contribute to the structure, helping to trap gas as the pancake cooks.

Egg whites: When whipped before being folded into a batter, egg whites increase the aeration of the batter and improve the rise of pancakes.

Buttermilk powder: Flavor booster. 

Baking powder: Chemical leavening agent. The primary ingredient responsible for the fine crumb characteristic of pancakes, baking powder produces carbon dioxide when hydrated and heated, which gives pancakes fluffiness and loft.

Salt: Seasoning. 

Butter: Adds flavor, richness, and improves Maillard browning on surfaces. 

Flour: Acts as a binder, holding the ingredients together and, when hydrated, the gluten network traps gas as it expands during cooking, creating fluffy pancakes.

Sugar: Adds sweetness, increases tenderness of the crumb, and encourages caramelization on cooked surfaces, enhancing the color. Also improves stability of egg white foams.

Cream of tartar: Improves stability of whipped egg white foam.

The Function of Different Pancake Batter Ingredients

The pan temperature determines the degree of browning on pancakes. Too low a pan temperature, and your pancakes will be pale; too high, and they’ll burn.

We found a pan temperature of [f 320] to be the perfect, “Goldilocks” temperature, yielding perfectly browned pancakes every time, no matter the formula.

Comparison of Pan Temperatures

Thickness: 🥞
Sweetness: 🍬🍬 
Texture: Pliable, soft
Pan temp: [f 320]
Pan type: Carbon steel
Difficulty: 4/5
Recipe: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/buttermilk-crepes">Buttermilk Crêpes</a>

A great crêpe is a thin, pliable, lightly browned pancake that’s eggy and light. The batter has to have a relatively high hydration so it can be easily poured and spread into an even thickness across the surface of a crêpe pan (often accomplished using a tool specifically for the purpose—a râteau).

To ensure the crêpes can be folded or rolled, the batter must contain enough flour to have structure, and it needs a very high proportion of eggs to liquid (double the ratio in a classic buttermilk pancake), which translates to a very resilient pancake with more eggy flavor.

The other primary distinction between crêpes and other types of pancakes is the batter does not contain a chemical leavening agent (baking powder).

The inclusion of buttermilk gives these crêpes a slight, welcome tang, and they&#39;re also a little more tender. Butter in the batter helps add flavor, but it’s added in a small enough quantity that it doesn’t encourage the crêpes to crisp.

The key to making crêpes is using the right pan. A well-seasoned carbon steel crêpe pan allows you to spread the batter thinly without creating gaps in the surface of the pancake and easily releases it after the short coking time is done. Cast iron pans are too heavy, and nonstick pans are too nonstick—the batter slides around on the surface when spreading it out with a râteau.

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Buttermilk crêpes recipe made with Control Freak Home induction cooker.

Buttermilk Crêpes

Thickness: 🥞🥞 
Sweetness: 🍬🍬 
Texture: Tender, lightly elastic
Pan temp: [f 320] 
Pan type: Carbon steel
Difficulty: 3/5

By adding baking powder and reducing the proportion of liquid to flour, we made a crêpe batter that pools and rises as it cooks. The result was sort of like the gordita crêpe or very thin pupusa—pliable but with a more cake-like texture.

The batter is still liquid enough that you can tilt the pan to spread it out into an even round—no râteau necessary.

We added a touch more butter for flavor, but again, not enough to encourage aggressive crisping on the surfaces, and we reduced the egg proportion to make the crumb a bit more cake-like and less pliable.

As with crêpes, the best pan for making these slightly thicker crêpes is a carbon steel crêpe pan. The slight stickiness holds the liquid batter in place, and its relative lightness makes it easy to tilt and swirl the plan to produce an even round.

Leavened Crêpes

Thickness: 🥞🥞🥞 
Sweetness: 🍬🍬 
Texture: Tender crumb, greater edge to inner fluff ratio
Pan temp: [f 320] 
Pan type: Cast iron/Nonstick
Difficulty: 1/5
Recipe: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/buttermilk-blini">Buttermilk Blini</a>

For these thin pancakes, we started with our Classic Buttermilk Pancake batter and then just thinned it out with more buttermilk. The result was a classic pancake, just slightly thinner.

We also found that prevented unwanted crisping on the cooked surfaces. Since we didn’t need all the baking powder in the classic formula for loft, we reduced the amounts slightly to produce a slightly denser crumb structure.

Effectively, this is exactly like the classic pancake in terms of texture and flavor, just thinner.

We found nonstick or well-seasoned cast iron pans to be the best for these pancakes. Both give you a clean release so you can flip these flapjacks whenever the first side is nicely browned.

We discovered this formula makes wonderful <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/buttermilk-blini">Buttermilk Blini</a>. The slightly denser crumb structure makes the blini easy to pick up and eat, and the reduced thickness keeps the focus of the bite on the toppings, like <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/creme-fraiche">crème fraîche</a> and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/smoked-salmon-nova">smoked salmon</a> or caviar.

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Buttermilk Blini

Thin Buttermilk Pancakes

Thickness: 🥞🥞🥞🥞 
Sweetness: 🍬🍬🍬 
Texture: Fluffy and light, tender crumb 
Pan temp: [f 320]
Pan type: Cast iron/Nonstick
Difficulty: 1/5
Recipe: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/buttermilk-pancakes">Precision Buttermilk Pancakes</a>

Fluffy, tender, and oh-so-delicious, the buttermilk pancake is both the most well-known and most widely consumed pancake variety for the very good reason that they’re delicious cakes you can douse in maple syrup and butter and eat for breakfast.

With enough loft to scan as the “cake” contained in its name, a good buttermilk pancake has a tight but light crumb structure, thanks to the inclusion of baking powder and the air trapped in the eggs, which expands as the wee cakes cook. A good buttermilk pancake will almost double in volume in the pan.

The role eggs play in this batter is mostly functional—an eggy tasting pancake is not a good pancake—but they add a bit of richness, which is further enhanced by a larger proportion of butter than in thinner pancake variations.

Again, a cast iron or nonstick pan is your best bet for cooking up these classic pancakes.

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Precision buttermilk pancake recipe made using a Control Freak Home.

Precision Buttermilk Pancakes

Classic Buttermilk Pancakes

The amount of fat and the kind of fat you use to grease the pan affects the degree and evenness of browning.

A dry pan yields the most browning, and it extends from edge to edge in an even gradient, as there is maximal contact between the batter and the surface of the pan.

A small amount of fat, whether applied as a spray, yields even, mottled browning.

Using a large amount of fat gives you uneven browning, with darker, crisper spots in the middle and along the perimeter.

To Grease or Not to Grease? That Is the Question.

Thickness: 🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞 
Sweetness: 🍬🍬 
Texture: Fluffy, very tender 
Pan temp: [f 320]
Pan type: Cast iron/Nonstick
Difficulty: 1/5

This pancake represents our attempts to take the G.O.A.T. classic buttermilk pancake and make it even fluffier with two minor adjustments: increasing the amount of flour and increasing the amount of baking powder.

By using more flour, we fortify the structure of the cooked batter, allowing it to contain more of the air trapped in the eggs and the gas produced by the baking powder. Too much flour, and the crumb turns dense and leaden; just enough, and it’s fluffy and light, with almost double the loft of the classic.

Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

Thickness: 🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞 
Sweetness: 🍬🍬
Texture: Super fluffy and tender 
Pan temp: [f 320] 
Pan type: Cast iron/Nonstick
Difficulty: 2/5

This variation represents our attempt at making the fluffiest possible buttermilk pancake using a fairly radical adjustment in technique. By separating the eggs and then aerating the egg whites aggressively, we tried to pump as much air as possible into the batter. We also upped the quantity of baking powder.

To ensure the batter has enough structure to contain all that gas, we reduced the amount of buttermilk slightly, yielding a thicker batter that won’t spread as much when it’s added to the pan. The result is a very lofty pancake, although the amount of baking powder we add really pushes the limit; you might notice a little tingling on your tongue.

To improve the flavor and browning, we also found that adding extra butter helped.

Soufflé Pancakes

Thickness: 🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞 
Sweetness: 🍬🍬🍬🍬 
Texture: Angel food cake–like, super tender, super fluffy, jiggly
Pan temp: [f 320] 
Pan type: Nonstick
Difficulty: 5/5
Recipe: <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/recipes/fluffy-japanese-pancakes">Ultra-Fluffy Japanese Pancakes</a>

These pancakes represent the biggest departure from the classic pancake formula and technique; they more closely resemble angel food cake cooked in a pan than the flat quick breads we’re accustomed to seeing stacked next to bacon and eggs at the diner.

They also happen to be the most difficult to make, and they have to be served immediately if you want to preserve their towering shape.

They have the smallest proportion of flour out of all the batter recipes, which is why their crumb is so feathery light. There’s just enough gluten development to hold the cakes and all the trapped air for a brief window of time. (Although, even when they deflate, they’re plenty delicious.)

The key here is making a stable meringue, which is why the egg white and sugar quantities are so high. For increased meringue stability, we add a little cream of tartar, too.

The small amount of buttermilk in this recipe could be substituted for milk or water, as you need just a little liquid to hydrate the flour, but we found it crucial for flavor and richness. Adding a lot of fat in some other form, like the butter used for flavoring the other pancake variations, would mess with the stability of the meringue.

Getting the right consistency on the batter is super important if you want to get super-lofty pancakes; mastering the portioning/scooping method is also crucial. A tight batter will hold its shape for just long enough for the baking powder to kick in, quickly followed by the expansion of the air in the meringue. If the batter is too loose, it’ll spread out immediately once it hits the pan, and you’ll get much squatter, denser pancakes.

The incredible loft of these pancakes also means you need to adjust the cooking process. Unlike with the flatter pancakes, you need to use steam to fully cook the batter through. And since it’s very important to use a nonstick pan so the delicate cakes can be flipped easily, finding a lid that both fits your pan and has enough height to accommodate the dramatic rise is something of a challenge.

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Fluffy Japanese pancakes recipe made with a Control Freak Home induction cooker.

Ultra-Fluffy Japanese Pancakes

Flapjacks, slapjacks, hotcakes, silver dollars, crêpes, blini ... whatever you call ’em, pancakes are delicious.A pancake is a deceptively simple preparation: Mix flour with some kind of liquid and leavening agent and puddle the mixture into a greased pan, and you’ll get a light cake-like foam that serves as a perfect canvas for everything from maple syrup and honey to caviar and sour cream.But, as we all know, there’s a lot of pancake varieties. Depending on the ingredient ratios and methods, you can make a filigree-thin crêpe, a stack of fat flapjacks, or a soufflé-like cushion that’s closer to an actual cake than anything else. What does that mean? That’s right: Pancakes are a perfect candidate for our signature parametric analysis! Specifically, we wanted to demonstrate how ingredient quantities and cooking techniques can yield pancakes of different thicknesses and, consequently, eating experiences.Let’s get into the stacks!

Buttermilk Pancakes: A Parametric Analysis