A chronicle of my first time making pancakes

During the week, I decided on a whim that I would try my own hand at it. It seemed so simple. Just mix up the batter, scoop it onto a buttered, heated skillet, wait 10 seconds, flip it, wait another 10 seconds and they’re done, right?

The inner competitive spirit was also pointing out to me that if my suitemate could get it to work her first time, it couldn’t have been that hard. Right?

Well, no. I learned that my suitemate is just a natural at the art of pancake making, and I sadly did not have this innate ability. My pancakes came out somewhat misshapen and burnt. It turned out that 10 seconds was actually way too long for a single side, because I had the heat turned on high.

I didn’t want salmonella or raw eggs anywhere near my sensitive digestive system. I get queasy at even the thought of eating rare meat; I always get my burgers or fancy meat well-done.

But it turns out that the heat should actually be somewhere closer to medium, since pancakes have such a short cooking time.

But it was okay. Minus the burnt parts, the pancakes were overall still edible and yummy. I was satisfied with my first-time pancakes on the whole.

Of course, my standards for what constitutes edible food have also lowered since coming to college, but other people who tried my pancakes enjoyed them as well.

By “enjoyed,” I mean they didn’t complain about them. I actually ran out of enough pancakes to give to all my friends that wanted them, if that means anything.

I made a promise to one friend that I’d make more the next day, and I did. However, something unexpected happened: They were even less circular. They looked like paint splatter.

For some reason, day two’s pancakes completely lost any shape that they had once I flipped them. They still tasted fine to me and my friends, but they looked even less aesthetically pleasing.

While these to-be pancakes’ bottoms were solid and borderline burnt on the skillet, the front sides were still completely uncooked. So when I’d flip one of those pancakes, the batter would just splash all over the sides of the skillet. I also had the heat on medium that time around, and I think it ended up working against me, because a high heat might have helped semi-cook the front side of the pancakes before flipping.

My best guess as to why my second attempt at pancakes ended up worse is that the batter I made had too much liquid that time around. All the ingredients I put in except the milk were measured to match the standard recipe I used.

But when it came to the milk, since I was near the end of the carton, I decided just to dump the rest in. From what I eyeballed, it seemed to be a cup.

I most likely ended up putting in more milk than necessary on the second day. Plus I’m really not a careful person, so I wouldn’t have noticed if the batter was thinner.

I don’t understand why I decided to be lazy for that one step, considering I measured everything else by the respective cup or spoon. I definitely paid the price for it, and I learned my lesson about making pancakes: It requires precision.

Besides pancakes, I’ve also been making plenty of fried rice lately. What’s bad is that I got too used to the lack of measuring required for fried rice dishes.

Fried rice is something that I’ve pretty much got down and can’t mess up, because eyeballing measurements works perfectly fine. If I put too many vegetables, that’s actually great. If I put too little soy sauce, that’s also perfectly fine. Fried rice always works. Pancakes don’t.

Making pancakes seems like such a simple task, but getting that perfect, golden-brown circular result is actually so difficult. I think I should just stick to stir fry for now, where I can get away with laziness.