Easy Sheet Pan Pancakes Recipe - Butter & Baggage (2024)

FAQs

Is it better to make pancakes with butter or canola oil? ›

Butter has a low smoke point, meaning it will quickly brown up in the skillet and your pancakes will quickly brown as well, leaving them with a burned flavor. Choose oil instead, for a better result. It has a higher smoke point, and you can use a variety of oils, such as canola, vegetable, or grapeseed.

Sugar: Just a tablespoon of white sugar is all you'll need for subtly sweet pancakes. Salt: A pinch of salt will enhance the overall flavor without making your pancakes taste salty. Milk and butter: Milk and butter add moisture and richness to the pancakes.

Gluten, which is found in flour, keeps pancakes from falling apart. Gluten, a type of protein, forms a “spiderweb” within baked goods, giving them structure. As the starches gelatinize, and turn from a batter to bread, the gluten strands hold them in place.

So, the best way to grease a pan is to use shortening or vegetable oil (either poured into the pan or sprayed) and spread it around into all the corners to ensure that every inch is covered. Of course, if you're very generous when you grease your pans, you shouldn't have too much of a problem using butter.

Brown butter adds a richer flavor to baked goods and recipes like these pancakes — making them irresistible and delicious.

Olive oil is an extremely versatile type of cooking oil and can be used for anything from baking to frying to sautéing. When recipes call for the use of either butter or any other type of refined oil, such as vegetable oil, we highly recommend substituting this for olive oil instead.

Pancake lovers' biggest complaint when adding water instead of milk is that the flavor seems to change. Pancakes aren't as richly flavored with water. There are a few ways to improve your batter when you've used water, including: Add extra butter.

It couldn't be easier to substitute butter for oil using a 1:1 ratio. This should work with olive, canola, vegetable, and coconut oils. Simply melt and cool the butter to room temperature, then continue with your recipe. (If the recipe calls for ½ cup oil, use ½ cup melted and cooled butter.)

Pancake Day in Canada comes with a twist as various objects get mixed into the batter. Each object holds a different value. If people find coins in their pancakes, it's said to be a sign they will become rich. Those who stumble upon a button in their pancake will become a seamstress, or so the tradition says.

What makes a pancake fluffier? ›

When cooked, the chemical leaveners (the baking powder and baking soda) in the pancakes created large air bubbles. The loose gluten network captured the air bubbles and maintained the each pancake's shape while still keeping it fluffy with air.

As the pancakes cook the proteins form a network and tense up, becoming rigid and providing that structure. A word of caution though — if you add too many eggs you'll end up with a loose pancake batter that will need to be balanced with more pancake mix.

Pancake Method: Nonstick Pan with Butter

Most recipes call for adding butter to nonstick pans for flavor and to help with browning.

Because there are milk fats in butter, cooking them over too-high heat or for too long (or, gasp, both) will ruin the butter in ways that cooking with other oils would not. If you still want to cook with butter and save the flavor, Fox News recommends that you add it towards the end of the process.

Calphalon says, “For better cooking results, preheat the pan using the setting you [intend] to use when cooking, before adding butter or oil.” Lesson: Be sure to read the instructions for your particular equipment.

Stop heating just before melted: To eliminate any risk of burning, remove butter from the heat just before it has all melted. The warmth of the melted butter will melt whatever remains. Work in batches: When cooking recipes that fry in butter, such as buttermilk pancakes, don't add all the butter to the pan at once.