This graphic shows how common mistakes can make or break your pancakes
- I slightly altered one recipe to make 14 different batches of pancakes.
- To examine how common mistakes affect the breakfast food, I made a list of easy-to-make faux pas and cooked up small batches for tasting.
- Errors like mistaking baking soda for baking powder and using a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon to measure ingredients can change the taste and texture of pancakes.
- This graphic shows each mistake made and how it affected each batch.
Pancakes are a classic brunch-staple and diner meal. But when it comes to making them at home, there's a lot that can go wrong.
After making common mistakes while baking chocolate-chip cookies, banana bread, and brownies, I tested out more faux pas on my favorite breakfast food.
I landed on a very simple recipe from Martha Stewart's website and got to work in the kitchen surrounded by flour, eggs, milk, salt, baking powder, butter, and sugar.
Once I had everything out, I made my way through the following list of mistakes (making one error per batch):
- Packing my flour and using too much of it;
- Not using enough flour;
- Using too much sugar;
- Not using enough sugar;
- Mistaking baking soda for baking powder;
- Mistaking a tablespoon for a teaspoon and using too much baking powder;
- Using too much milk;
- Not using enough milk;
- Using too many eggs;
- Leaving out eggs completely;
- Leaving out butter completely.
The recipe I used suggested unsalted butter or vegetable oil for the pancakes. I used unsalted butter throughout my experiment, but I also wanted to test the difference between pancakes made with unsalted butter, salted butter, and vegetable oil. So, after the 11 botched batches above, I made three more to compare baking fats.
You can see how each batch of pancakes turned out below (click on the image to make it larger):
I knew there was no way I could possibly consume 14 batches of pancakes on my own, so I cut the recipe in half to minimize waste.
In previous experiments similar to this one, I've tried to cut the recipe as much as possible. The challenge with this recipe is that it called for only one large egg, so I had to figure out how to halve it.
It's amazing what you can figure out with a quick Google search. Turns out, one large egg (beaten) measures out to four tablespoons. So all I had to do was measure out two tablespoons per batch and I was set! This may seem like a small detail, but it felt like a giant win for someone like me who is an amateur baker at best.
At the end of the test, I ended up using seven eggs instead of 14, 7 cups of flour instead of 14 cups, less than two sticks of butter instead of three-and-a-half sticks, and only 7 cups of milk instead of nearly 1 gallon.
In terms of how the mistakes affected the pancakes, there was only one error that resulted in an inedible batch: Using baking soda instead of baking powder left me with a metallic taste on my tongue for 20 minutes.
Surprisingly, the pancakes made without eggs were delicious. The sweetness from the milk was decadent and the pancake had a melt-in-your-mouth texture.
And in comparing unsalted butter, salted butter, and vegetable oil, I found that oil made for a creamier pancake while there was virtually no difference between the two kinds of butter.
My main takeaway from the whole experiment? Double, triple, quadruple check that you grabbed the baking powder. Leave the baking soda in your pantry.
Read the full story to find out how every pancake tasted here >
Insider has more culinary experiments like this in the works. Send suggestions for baked goods and other foods you would like to see us try to raskinasi@insider.com.
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This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).