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

Sometimes you want pancakes for breakfast, and nothing but a stack of <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttermilk-pancakes">buttermilk pancakes</a> will do. Other times, you want those ultra-fluffy, souffléd, jiggly Japanese-style pancakes you’ve seen on your IG feed. This recipe is for those other times. Unlike “normal” pancakes, this towering masterpiece of fluff isn’t straightforward; you aren’t just mixing wet into dry and puddling the batter in a pan. This pancake recipe is all about technique—mixing, whipping, folding, cooking temperature, portioning, steaming, flipping. It’s a challenge, but the challenge is worth it. The key to all that loft is a meringue. You create an egg yolk base with your standard issue pancake ingredients, but then whip egg whites (with sugar and cream of tartar for added stability) into a stable foam. Once incorporated into the batter and cooked, the air trapped in the foam pushes the pancake into angel food cake territory: super light, super tall, like eating a cloud in every bite.

Ultra-Fluffy Japanese Pancakes