Soufflé pancakes

[ccp900]

Hi all

 

so I tried making soufflé pancakes and for the life of me I cant seem to get the hang of it.

 

So I get 1 egg and separate the yolk from the white.  I add a little bit of oil and pancake mix to the yolk.  I whip the whites and add vinegar to the whites when it becomes foamy. Beat a little more and then add  white sugar until stiff peaks. I am sure the whites are stiff and I haven’t over whipped it.

 

heres where my problem starts. I add 1/3 of the whipped whites to the yolk mixture. So far so good but it’s a bit watery not a real concern yet. I then add the rest of the whipped whites and carefully fold it. Whatever I do and however careful I am the whole thing just becomes soup!!  Its supposed to stay airy and whipped that I can pipe it and it would stay put but mine becomes very watery.

 

would you have some tips for me?

[weinoo]

Why the vinegar?

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Are these what you're trying to make?   

[JeanneCake]

2 hours ago, weinoo said:

Why the vinegar?

 

an acid helps to prevent overbeating; you can use cream of tartar, or lemon juice to accomplish the same thing.   You add it when it's at soft peak (at least, that's when I add it if I'm  using it.  I tend to live dangerously when beating egg whites )

[caroled]

13 hours ago, ccp900 said:

Hi all

 

so I tried making soufflé pancakes and for the life of me I cant seem to get the hang of it.

 

So I get 1 egg and separate the yolk from the white.  I add a little bit of oil and pancake mix to the yolk.  I whip the whites and add vinegar to the whites when it becomes foamy. Beat a little more and then add  white sugar until stiff peaks. I am sure the whites are stiff and I haven’t over whipped it.

 

heres where my problem starts. I add 1/3 of the whipped whites to the yolk mixture. So far so good but it’s a bit watery not a real concern yet. I then add the rest of the whipped whites and carefully fold it. Whatever I do and however careful I am the whole thing just becomes soup!!  Its supposed to stay airy and whipped that I can pipe it and it would stay put but mine becomes very watery.

 

would you have some tips for me?

 How long after you finish folding do you use it...the video @Margaret Pilgrim posted says that due to lack of sugar it will become runny  if you don't use it all at once. Could this be contributing to the problem?

 

Edited July 5, 2020 by caroled (log)

[ccp900]

2 hours ago, caroled said:

 How long after you finish folding do you use it...the video @Margaret Pilgrim posted says that due to lack of sugar it will become runny  if you don't use it all at once. Could this be contributing to the problem?

 

 

I use it immediately after I whip. I also use more sugar just to stabilize the darned thing

Edited July 5, 2020 by ccp900 (log)

[ccp900]

8 hours ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Are these what you're trying to make?   

Hi there, yes that’s what I’m trying to make. The batter becomes really runny after I fold.  I’ve tried stiff peaks as well as firm peaks just to be sure I am not overly whipping

[teonzo]

Adding some sugar to the egg whites when you beat them is a good idea, you are already doing this.

 

The problem should be in how much you beat your egg whites. You talk about stiff peaks and firm peaks, that's too much. You need to reach soft peaks and not more. If your whites are soft then it's much easier to fold them into the base. If they are hard then you need to fold much more, deflating them and ending up with a runny batter. So try beating your whites much less, just until they reach soft peaks. Be careful when you fold them, you need the correct movement and folding the less possible. It's impossible to explain this by words, try looking at some videos by professionals.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[ccp900]

26 minutes ago, teonzo said:

Adding some sugar to the egg whites when you beat them is a good idea, you are already doing this.

 

The problem should be in how much you beat your egg whites. You talk about stiff peaks and firm peaks, that's too much. You need to reach soft peaks and not more. If your whites are soft then it's much easier to fold them into the base. If they are hard then you need to fold much more, deflating them and ending up with a runny batter. So try beating your whites much less, just until they reach soft peaks. Be careful when you fold them, you need the correct movement and folding the less possible. It's impossible to explain this by words, try looking at some videos by professionals.

 

 

 

Teo

 

Thanks too I’ll experiment with that next weekend. Thank you for that. I didn’t even think about soft peaks since all the YouTube recipes called for stiff peaks.  
 

does this mean I just have  lousy lousy technique in folding?  The YouTube ones all did stiff peaks and they were able to successfully incorporate.

[teonzo]

29 minutes ago, ccp900 said:

Thanks too I’ll experiment with that next weekend. Thank you for that. I didn’t even think about soft peaks since all the YouTube recipes called for stiff peaks.  

 

When you fold egg whites / meringue in a batter then your goal is that the whites have the same consistency of the base batter. If it's so, then it will be much easier and faster to mix them. If the whites are harder then it's more difficult to mix them, because they are hard and give resistance to incorporating the base. So you end up mixing more, thus deflating them. This is a common mistake made by non professionals, because the natural thing to think is "the harder the whites, the most difficult for them to deflate", while the reality is the exact opposite (it's counter-intuitive). So always be careful about the source you are using, in this case youtube: it's full of people that look reliable, but give out bad infos. Always better to look at professional sources, not much for the recipes, but for techniques and explanations.

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, ccp900 said:

does this mean I just have  lousy lousy technique in folding?  The YouTube ones all did stiff peaks and they were able to successfully incorporate.

 

That's a possibility, it's impossible to say from this far.

Youtube videos are edited. So who knows if what people are showing is the real stuff.

 

 

 

Teo

 

[weinoo]

11 hours ago, JeanneCake said:

 

an acid helps to prevent overbeating; you can use cream of tartar, or lemon juice to accomplish the same thing.   You add it when it's at soft peak (at least, that's when I add it if I'm  using it.  I tend to live dangerously when beating egg whites )

 

I guess the only thing I've ever used, when I've used it,  is the tartaric acid stuff.

[AlaMoi]

"I add a little bit of oil and pancake mix to the yolk."

pancake mixes usually have many additives - try "nothing but AP flour"

pancake mix with baking powder + vinegar will produce a lot of CO2 _and water_ which acts to 'dilute' the batter.

 

the usual cause of egg whites collapsing is over-beating/whipping.  I see from your earlier post the softer peaks thing.

frankly, for a batter that's going to be used immediately, I've never found the cream of tartar "stabilizing effect" to be of any use -

and too much acid (?strength of vinegar?) can cause issues. 

rice wine vinegar is rather "weak" percentage wise - and may be more apt in use in oriental cooking approaches.

[ccp900]

5 hours ago, teonzo said:

 

When you fold egg whites / meringue in a batter then your goal is that the whites have the same consistency of the base batter. If it's so, then it will be much easier and faster to mix them. If the whites are harder then it's more difficult to mix them, because they are hard and give resistance to incorporating the base. So you end up mixing more, thus deflating them. This is a common mistake made by non professionals, because the natural thing to think is "the harder the whites, the most difficult for them to deflate", while the reality is the exact opposite (it's counter-intuitive). So always be careful about the source you are using, in this case youtube: it's full of people that look reliable, but give out bad infos. Always better to look at professional sources, not much for the recipes, but for techniques and explanations.

 

 

 

 

That's a possibility, it's impossible to say from this far.

Youtube videos are edited. So who knows if what people are showing is the real stuff.

 

 

 

Teo

 

Thank you so much for that great info!! It really makes a lot of sense!!!!  
 

[ccp900]

4 hours ago, AlaMoi said:

"I add a little bit of oil and pancake mix to the yolk."

pancake mixes usually have many additives - try "nothing but AP flour"

pancake mix with baking powder + vinegar will produce a lot of CO2 _and water_ which acts to 'dilute' the batter.

 

the usual cause of egg whites collapsing is over-beating/whipping.  I see from your earlier post the softer peaks thing.

frankly, for a batter that's going to be used immediately, I've never found the cream of tartar "stabilizing effect" to be of any use -

and too much acid (?strength of vinegar?) can cause issues. 

rice wine vinegar is rather "weak" percentage wise - and may be more apt in use in oriental cooking approaches.

I’ll remove the vinegar next time.  I don’t add anymore baking soda or powder but I am sure you’re 100% correct that pancake mix already has it.  Since it’s a mix that needs to work and be fluffy out of the box.  Thank you as well for helping

[jimb0]

Yeah i watched the ingredients section again and don't see leavening anywhere - I'm sure your pancake mix has it and so I'll be curious to see if just using standard AP flour will help with your issues. It has nothing to do with the creation of water (your vinegar is already 95%+ water) diluting a batter as much, I'd wager, as excess gas effing up structural networks that help maintain air bubbles and stabilize the foam. 

 

As an aside, I wonder if you could just mix everything plus egg whites and put it in an iSi whipper to dispense directly into the skillet.

[ccp900]

4 hours ago, jimb0 said:

Yeah i watched the ingredients section again and don't see leavening anywhere - I'm sure your pancake mix has it and so I'll be curious to see if just using standard AP flour will help with your issues. It has nothing to do with the creation of water (your vinegar is already 95%+ water) diluting a batter as much, I'd wager, as excess gas effing up structural networks that help maintain air bubbles and stabilize the foam. 

 

As an aside, I wonder if you could just mix everything plus egg whites and put it in an iSi whipper to dispense directly into the skillet.

Interesting. I don’t have an isi though and covid is just messing up everything!!!
 

ill reply back here once I get this done. I can only cook things up on weekends hehe

 

there are other recipes out there that use baking powder. Something like 15g AP flour and 5 g baking powder for 1 egg recipe. I was able to buy flour recently so I’ll go ahead and try using that too instead of pancake mix

Edited July 8, 2020 by ccp900 (log)

[ccp900]

On 7/5/2020 at 7:28 PM, teonzo said:

 

When you fold egg whites / meringue in a batter then your goal is that the whites have the same consistency of the base batter. If it's so, then it will be much easier and faster to mix them. If the whites are harder then it's more difficult to mix them, because they are hard and give resistance to incorporating the base. So you end up mixing more, thus deflating them. This is a common mistake made by non professionals, because the natural thing to think is "the harder the whites, the most difficult for them to deflate", while the reality is the exact opposite (it's counter-intuitive). So always be careful about the source you are using, in this case youtube: it's full of people that look reliable, but give out bad infos. Always better to look at professional sources, not much for the recipes, but for techniques and explanations.

 

 

 

 

That's a possibility, it's impossible to say from this far.

Youtube videos are edited. So who knows if what people are showing is the real stuff.

 

 

 

Teo

 

Just to report back

 

i used ap flour instead to remove the baking powder in the mix and went to soft peaks. Soft peaks is harder for me to actually distinguish it Looks like there is a long window for soft peaks so I don’t know when to stop hehe. My initial whipping was underwhipped I think because  when I mixed the initial 1/3 it started to be runny again. So I whipped the last 2/3 some more to make it just a tad firmer. I added it in and the the whole batter was firmer than my usual runny watery mess so it worked! Thanks teo for the soft peaks tip. It was indeed easier to mix in.  I was apprehensive though so I didn’t mix it too much and I had white blobs of meringue in the resulting pancake hehe.  But it didn’t flatten out to flapjacks and had more lift.

 

thanks too jimbo on the tip on baking powder I removed it just to make sure the activation didn’t break my structure. It’s also 1 less ingredient to use.

 

plus I didn’t weigh the ingredients I just eyeballed it since I just wanted to see if my batter will be a runny mess but it turned out better.  More practice to get it perfect but at least I now know where to focus on and that is getting the right meringue whip levels. I think it needs to be around almost firm peaks but not quite so i need to know more visual cues. 
 

teo would you have some tips there? It might be the level of the bow of the peak? 
 

thanks again for helping me trouble shoot

Edited July 11, 2020 by ccp900 (log)

[paulraphael]

On 7/5/2020 at 8:56 AM, AlaMoi said:

the usual cause of egg whites collapsing is over-beating/whipping.  I see from your earlier post the softer peaks thing.

 

This. I've found it helpful to stop short of soft peaks. When you fold egg whites into pancake batter, even though it's a gentle process, it adds a surprising amount of whipping. 

 

I use whipped whites in pancakes a lot and have gotten the best results by going just to the point where they start to have some structure. However, I've never gone as far as making batter that's like a souflé. Mine aren't foamy enough to pipe. This may be a trickier project.

[ccp900]

On 7/22/2020 at 11:07 AM, paulraphael said:

 

This. I've found it helpful to stop short of soft peaks. When you fold egg whites into pancake batter, even though it's a gentle process, it adds a surprising amount of whipping. 

 

I use whipped whites in pancakes a lot and have gotten the best results by going just to the point where they start to have some structure. However, I've never gone as far as making batter that's like a souflé. Mine aren't foamy enough to pipe. This may be a trickier project.

It’s fun when it works out and a whole lot of cursing when it doesn’t lol

[Margaret Pilgrim]

4 minutes ago, ccp900 said:

It’s fun when it works out and a whole lot of cursing when it doesn’t lol

 

Talking about life?

[ccp900]

4 minutes ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

 

Talking about life?

The idea does work in so many different levels. I agree hehe

 

this pancake though would make you question why you even thought about making it in the first place but you just can’t stop trying and getting pissed when you fail but you’ll do it all over again