Epic Failure – The Deep Fried Pancake Story
One of the most common questions that I receive is, “How do you get the recipes right the first time?”. Quick answer, I usually don’t. A lot of times it takes a little practice to get a recipe ready for the blog. Sometimes the ideas are so out there that they take a few takes to get right. Take for instance the chicken fried bacon post. That one took 5 takes before it came out just right. However, every once in a while there is an idea/recipe that after 10 takes just totally sucks. These ideas/recipes are labeled EPIC FAILURES. I wasn’t going to post about them, but after talking to friends they said it would be fun to read. So in the interest of comedy here is EPIC FAILURE #1: Deep Fried Pancakes.
I was hoping to make a quick and easy pancake that could be portable and fun to eat. In theory this could be awesome. In real life, well it is an epic failure. I used a basic pancake recipe, but I added a bit more flour to the recipe to make a thicker batter. I was hoping that this solidify the dough enough to make it stable and able to fry. If added enough flour so that it was still a pancake, but not too much that it turned into a cake. I wanted deep fried pancakes not doughnuts.
The recipe – I am only including this in the event that someone has a solution. I think the idea is there. It just needs to be tweaked a lot. Remember we still want pancakes in the end, not doughnuts.
- 1.5 cups flour
- 3 tbs sugar
- 2 tbs baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup cream
- 2 tbs cooking oil
I mixed the ingredients together to form a thick batter.
The next thing was to setup the deep fryer. Well my deep fryer was out of commission so I made one using a cast iron skillet, a turkey fryer thermometer and a kettle. Yeah, I was feeling a bit MacGyverish. Just give me a second to pat myself on the back. Ok, so I filled the skillet with oil, clamped the thermometer to the pan, and then propped the thermometer on the kettle. The kettle was key as turkey fryer thermometers are 14 inches long and my skillet was only 3 inches deep. The kettle provided a way to angle the theremometer so that it was in the oil, but not touching the pan.
Next I waited for it to come up to temp. 350 degrees sounds nice.
Take 1
Pour the batter in with a 3oz ice cream scoop. That way I can make uniform, good sized pancakes. This was just a bad idea to begin with. 3ozs of batter in a shallow deep fryer. The batter hit the bottom of the pan and came out of the oil by an inch like an island. By the time the dough released from the bottom of the pan, it looked like a piece of charcoal. It was black, hard, and burnt to a crisp.
Take 2
Silver dollar pancakes, fried at 350 degrees seems natural. Well for pancakes it is not. Within a matter of seconds the pancakes turned into black hockey pucks. Yep. It also smoked like crazy. Solution, don’t fry pancakes at 350. Its too hot. If you try this at home, make sure you have lots of ventilation.
Take 3
Silver dollar pancakes fried at 300 degrees. This seemed to work. The pancakes went in the oil, retained their shape and cooked perfectly golden.
The only problem was that when I flipped the pancake, it spread like wild fire. The batter didn’t cook in the middle and when I flipped it, the batter took over the pan.
In the end there was a single pancake that was not cooked all the way through. Not good. At this point I was starting to get a little mad. Why couldn’t I fry pancakes. There has to be a solution.
Take 4
I cranked up the oil to 325. This actually worked. The silver dollar pancakes browned on all sides. After about 10 pancakes I determined that it would take 2.5 minutes on each side to cook all the way through. Got it. Totally going to make deep fried pancakes. They were a little browner than I wanted, but I had successfully deep fried pancakes.
The pancakes flipped, retained their shape, and came out golden brown.
Lets add some syrup and taste.
Verdict
These were the worst thing that I have ever eaten. In order to get the pancake cooked all the way through, you have to leave it in the oil too long. They were like eating a crispy sponge of oil. I still can’t get the taste out of my mouth. It would have been quicker for me to just take shots of the vegetable oil. Not to mention, they were crispy all the way through. They were so light and airy, that the oil seeped all the way through and crisped everything. There was no flavor left from the batter.
In the end I made 28 pancakes. Only 3 of the 28 were suitable for taking pictures. Yep, out of all of that batter, only three silver dollar pancakes came out. Absolutely none of them were suitable for human consumption. They were the worst thing that I have ever eaten. They were also the worst thing that I have ever cooked.
If you know a better way to deep fry pancakes let me know. As for now, I think that it is a bad idea. Honestly, I consumed about a 1/4 cup of oil, just trying one pancake. Yep, Deep Fried Pancakes are an EPIC FAILURE.
