The Pancake Misconception

Today's Pinstrosity is brought to you by the letter Y....for yummy! 

Sometimes a name can be a little misleading. Want to know how? Okay, picture pancakes in your head. Got it? Now hold that thought and read on. 

We had two Pinstrosities sent to us in the same day with the same food and the same misconception from the names. Stephanie and Patricia found recipes for Pancake Muffins, or Pop up Pancakes, and whipped them up for their families. They followed different pins, but the recipes were pretty much the same (one added orange zest and vanilla for flavoring, the other didn't). With the image of regular pancakes in their head they were expecting to have cute little cup shaped flap-jack textured pancakes. But, that's not quite what the original recipes had in store. 

The Original Pins

http://www.makeandtakes.com/pop-up-pancakes

http://realmomkitchen.com/489/mini-german-pancakes/

Do you see what's going on here? Let me give you their photos and stories first and then we'll jump into what these pancakes really are. 

The Pinstrosities

Here's Patricia's story:
"I like to do something special on the last day of summer break. The very first special activity this year was a breakfast of Pancake Muffins.  I saw them on Pinterest, looked up the recipe and thought it was fool-proof.  Famous last words, right?  I thought I followed the directions to a T, but still ended up with quite a different result. The kids and I still ate them and they tasted okay, but I think we'll go back to making our pancakes the old fashioned way!"

And here's Stephanie's story:

 "I saw these amazing-looking pop-up pancakes on Pinterest, so I finally decided to make them this morning. You make a sort of pancake batter in your blender, then pour it into muffin tins, and voila! Oven-baked, fluffy pancakes! Well, okay, not exactly. Check out that wrinkly goodness! Mmmm, looks tasty, right?!"

"When you cook them, they puff up really big and then sink back down right away, making a cup-shaped "pancake". I hesitate to call them pancakes, because they don't taste like pancakes -- they taste like eggs (no surprise when you use 6 eggs to make them and a minimal amount of other ingredients!!). I cooked them for 15 minutes, and they puffed up and turned "golden on top", as the instructions say. However, they were still a bit gooey in the middle, so I cooked them for an extra 5 minutes."

"Now I will say, once I got over the fact that they didn't taste like real pancakes, they didn't taste bad. In fact, my kids kept asking for more! I haven't decided yet if I'll make them again. I should also note that I used no-dairy margarine instead of butter, and an almond/coconut milk mix instead of regular milk, since we can't have dairy around here. It's possible that actual dairy ingredients would have a different result....right??"

So What's Going On?

With the image of "normal" pancakes in the shape of cups these definitely seemed weird. What's going on here is that these aren't normal pancakes. I grew up calling these pancakes "No-Flip Oven Pancakes", but most people know these as German pancakes and they are NOT anything like flap-jack pancakes...not in texture, color, taste, or anything. However, these pancakes are delicious! 

German pancakes have more of a cooked egg texture than a bread texture, which is one thing surprised Stephanie and Patricia with the recipes. And, they do cook differently than flap-jacks. You can't pour the German Pancake batter on a griddle like you can with the flap-jack batter, it's just too thin (I suppose it may turn out slightly like crepes if you tried...but I've never tried it. Anyone?). You can cook G.P.s in a cake pan, muffin pan, bundt pan, etc. While cooking the German Pancakes will puff up...sometimes they puff up HUGE. That's completely normal. And, it's completely normal for them to fall after pulling them out of the oven. Wrinkles and pot-marks are normal. You can eat these with regular pancake syrup, with jams or jellies, with whipped cream, or in our family we pour melted butter over it when we pull the pancakes out of the oven and then sprinkle powdered or brown sugar on top (personally, I think that's the best way to eat these). And, I don't think that Stephanie's modifications made a difference, they look normal to me and it sounds like they were a hit with the kids (which automatically deems it a winner in my books). 

So...Patricia and Stephanie had complete Pin Wins as far as how their food turned out, but Pinstrosities with how they expected it to turn out. The word "pancakes" threw them off and they thought the recipe had gone wrong, but now they know the awesome yummy goodness of German Pancakes. So this GCT Level 1 Pinstrosity is really a Pin Win in disguise. 

If you've never made these before, seriously try them out. I'll even give you the recipe I grew up with:

No-Flip Oven Pancakes (aka German Pancakes)

3 eggs

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. milk

2 TBS melted butter/margarine

1/4 tsp. salt

2 TBS melted butter (at the end, after done baking)

1. Mix eggs and flour. 
2. Mix in milk, 2 TBS melted butter, and salt. 
3. Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. 
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 min., or until golden and puffy. 
5. Remove from oven and pour remaining melted butter over the top. 
6. Serve with syrup, jam, jelly, powdered or brown sugar, or whatever your heart desires. 

This recipe is about the right size for 2 hungry adults...or at least this is what Cameron and I make to split between us.