Nothing says, "it's the weekend" like a stack of pancakes. Fluffy, buttery and slightly sweet, this crowd-pleasing breakfast just feels extra special served on a Saturday or Sunday morning. But if you find that your homemade pancakes often wind up too flat or hard like a hockey puck, we've got you covered. It turns out there is a science to making pancakes that are perfectly fluffy.
Over the years, the culinary experts in the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen and Good Housekeeping Institute Kitchen Lab have flipped thousands of pancakes while developing recipes and evaluating griddles and nonstick skillets. Some batches began with a homemade pancake mix, while others started with a boxed mix. Along the way, the team has experimented with using different ingredients and cooking techniques to see if that leads to a better (or worse) pancake.
The results? Well, there are plenty of factors that contribute to the overall quality of a pancake recipe.
Many baking recipes suggest you stir the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, before combining together — and pancakes should be no different. This allows you to properly mix together your flours, salt and leavenings (read: avoiding clumps of salt) without worrying about over mixing and activating the gluten. "You want to stir the wet and dry ingredients together until just combined, so if you skip stirring the wet and dry ingredients separately, you'll probably end up over mixing, which could then deflate your pancakes," explains Food Producer Tina Martinez.
For the dry ingredients, you'll want to add a combination of baking soda and powder (more on that later). In terms of the wet ingredients, while we have successfully made pancakes without eggs, using Greek yogurt, we have found that eggs play a big role in making pancakes fluffy. "Eggs help with the structure of the food, so that's also going to contribute to the height. That liquid is going to help bind to all the dry ingredients, and we're going to get to start developing gluten," says Kitchen Lab Director Nicole Papantoniou.
That said, you don't want too much gluten. "A little bit of gluten is important, but we don't want to form a ton of gluten in pancakes," says Food Scientist Brittany Towers Lewis. "Gluten is great for bread, since it makes for a nice chewy bread, but we don't really want chewy pancakes."
The secret to the fluffiest pancakes
In our tests, we found that it's important to use both baking powder and baking soda in your pancake mix. While both of these ingredients can help foods rise, there is a difference between the two. "Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. Baking powder is actually baking soda with a weak acid, kind of like cream of tartar, mixed into it, and it works in two ways: once, when you add wet ingredients to it and then again, when it's heated," explains Chief Food Director Kate Merker.
"It's really what makes things much lighter and fluffier and gives you a better lift than just baking soda alone." That's why our recipe calls for both baking soda and baking powder. "Together they act as one of the best leavening agents," says Merker.
How you know you did it right
Now, the biggest indicator as to whether you'll have fluffy pancakes or not — the bubbles (or lack thereof). "Make sure you start to see bubbles on the surface of your batter because that means your baking powder and baking soda has started to react with the milk and is working," explains Martinez.
"It's all about the bubbles! There are going to be bubbles when you cook, but the first bubbles are going to happen right in our bowl," says Merker. Once your griddle is heated, and you scoop the batter onto the hot pan, you'll notice that the pancakes will start to bubble up. "As you start cooking the pancakes, the liquid and water start to evaporate, and the edges are starting to get set, the starches are starting to gelatinize, which is where you get that texture," explains Lewis.
"When you scoop the batter onto your griddle or into your skillet, if your batter looks nice and light, has lots of bubbles and looks aerated, you know you are going to have the fluffiest pancakes," says Martinez. Easy, right?
Pancake Recipes From the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen
TUNE IN! Watch the experts in the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen talk about the science behind making the fluffiest pancakes in CBS's hit show, Mission Unstoppable with Miranda Cosgrove.
