Japanese Souffle Pancakes

Pancakes has been a weekend affair at home for a while. Every now and then the "Tasty" channels throws in a feed of these super fluffy souffle pancakes tempting me to try. Well it didn't take too long for me to fall for it. After a look up on a few YouTube videos finally landed on one which I though would work for me and of course customised it a bit for my needs. It only took 3 attempts for me to get here. So here's a "Chetty proof" version which I would love to get some feedback. As one of my friends suggested I tried to include more photos of the process as "behind the scenes". Hope they help.

Ingredients

(these measurements makes about 8 pancakes - good for a family of 4)

1. Plain flour - 1 cup
2. Baking soda - 1 tea spoon
3. Milk - 3-4 tablespoons
4. Vanilla extract - 1 tea spoon
5. Eggs - 6
6. Sugar - 1 teaspoon
7. Cream of Tartar - 1/2 teaspoon
8. Salt - 1/4 tea spoon

Method

1. Separate the egg whites and yolks in different large bowls.



Step 2

2. Add sugar and cream of tartar powder in the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks are formed.
3. Mix the egg yolks with flour, milk, salt and vanilla essence until all of them are mixed well into a smooth paste.
4. Fold in the egg white meringue into the batter slowly until a smooth foamy batter is formed.
5. Create a ring using baking paper. The ring should be 2 cms tall and about 8-9 cms in diameter. This dimension is very important folks. Any other size will mess things up.
6. Heat a non stick tawa on low heat.  The lowest possible on your stove. 
7. Sprinkle a few drops of water. The tawa is ready when the water sizzles.
8. Place the baking paper ring and pour about 3/4th of a cup of the batter into the ring. Remember this will raise up a bit so do not pour until the brim.



Step 3

9. Add a few table spoons of water around the side and steam it for 1 minute with a lid on. The timing is very important. This may slightly vary based on your setup.
10. Flip it around and steam it again with water on the side for another minute.
11. Remove the pancake into a plate and remove the paper ring.
12. Serve hot with butter and maple syrup.

Enjoy!!

C

Some behind the scene images

Step 4

Step 10

Step 8

Step 9 

Pan Cake - Apple Cinnamon

I can't say I grew up on pan cakes, but I do remember the very first pan cakes I've had in my grandparent's house in  Muniappan Koil St, Salem made by my aunt. As a child there were probably very few occasions that I enjoyed pan cakes. However things changed after I went to US of A thanks to IHOP (International House Of Pancakes).

While in the US, we had a "tradition" of having a pan cake breakfast on Sundays for a very long time. "Aunt Jemima" came to our rescue then. They had the best pan cake mixes we've ever had. After our return from US we again had a break in pan cakes for quite some time. The best pan cakes I've had recently was at my cousin's house in Brisbane. Bro - those were awesome blueberry pancakes!!

In the Oz, we haven't been lucky enough to find a good pan cake mix. All we find at the local groceries are the ready made mixes where you just mix water to prepare the batter. Not very happy with that. It's all good...it pushed us to prepare our own batter from the scratch. In Sydney we've had some good pan cakes at a place called City Extra. A concept which the owners picked up from a trip to the US of A.

The recipe here is a bit of a mix from several sources with a bit of our own twist.

What goes in


Guess I have to give the specific measurements this time. Anything to do with flour and egg together, if you mess it up the proportions - well it becomes a mess. :-)


1) All purpose flour - 1 and 1/2 cups
2) Baking powder - 1 tea spoon
3) 1 Egg (Yolk and White separated)
4) 1 and 1/3rd cup milk
5) 1 Apple
6) 1 tea spoon cinnamon powder
7) 1 tablespoon sugar
8) 2 tablespoons butter (melted)
9) Maple Syrup (NOT Maple flavoured syrup - has to be natural maple syrup)

What went in...

The Process

1) Peel the skin off the apple and grate the pulp.
2) Mix the flour, baking powder, milk, egg yolk, melted butter, cinnamon powder and beat it to a nice smooth batter. Try not to have the lumps.
3) Add the grated apple and give the mix a good beat.
4) Beat the egg whites fast enough to make the creamy white stuff out of it. Easier if you have mechanical beater.
5) Mix the egg white into the batter in the end.

6) Heat a tawa - skillet or whatever flat surface you choose. The temperature of the tawa plays an extremely critical role in the outcome of the pancake. It has to be just right!! I do it on low flame. It takes a little longer. But hey...we have to wait for good things in life. :-) (Hope any of my team members 7reading this don't take a different cue from this. ;-))

7) Pour about half a cup of flour (about one serving of the spoon  in the pic above).

8) Wait for the bubbles to come up and the sides to harden up a bit. Approximately 2 minutes.

9) Flip it over and wait for another minute or so and....voila...

It's better served with a scoop of butter and of course with Maple Syrup

The Result...

(please bear with my presentation skills...still working on them...rather too hungry to eat rather to perfect the presentation) ;-)

Made a slight variation for Nandhitha:

Funny Face Pan Cake

She wanted a "Funny Face" pan cake as she had one in City Extra. :-)