Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

(absurdlyoptimized.com)

63 points | by bkazez 2 days ago

14 comments

  • thechao 1 hour ago
    A ten hour wait doesn't really strike me as a pancake? You should have a "it's 730am, there's four screaming girls, only two of which are related to me, the dogs are begging for scraps, and the demand for pancakes has crossed into Veblen goods territory."
    • airstrike 1 hour ago
      The good thing about that scenario is no matter how the pancakes come out, you've already won
    • saxonww 19 minutes ago
      The default has the 'tang' slider at maximally tangy, which is where the yeast and wait come in. If you back off on that the recipe looks more like the standard quickbread I'm used to.

      The yeast and ferment is going to make it more acidic, and more tender because the gluten will be weakened. I imagine you could use cake flour instead and get close to the same tenderness, but the flavor would be different.

    • esafak 2 minutes ago
      If you know the kids are going to want pancakes in the morning you just prepare it at night? You can ask them to confirm over dinner...

      While I can confirm sourdough pancakes are quite nice, I am satisfied with Krusteaze :)

    • chickensong 52 minutes ago
      One size doesn't fit all. By your logic, homemade sourdough isn't bread, you should have packaged Wonder bread.

      Keep a box of Krusteaz in the pantry for the kid sleepovers, prepare the night before for an adult brunch.

  • sastra 1 hour ago
    Yes! The world needs more Parametric-driven recipes. This is fantastic. Love it.
  • saxonww 29 minutes ago
    You've covered dairy and acid ingredients, but I honestly have no idea what "Unrendered Berkshire pork fat" is or where I would get it. Is that bacon grease? Saltpork? Lard is common but rendered.
  • iwassayinbourns 33 minutes ago
    I would love to see the gluten and dairy free pancake recipe incorporated into this one for additional customizability. For example, what if I’m gluten free but not dairy free? Or happen to only have soy milk on the day but I’ve got plenty of butter?
  • chickensong 33 minutes ago
    > My particular favorite are the yeast-raised lemon ricotta kefir pancakes - the best I've ever had.

    As a lemon ricotta pancake and yeast enthusiast, I look forward to trying your recipe! Thanks for sharing!

  • fathermarz 1 hour ago
    This is what life is about right here
  • mrmincent 23 minutes ago
    This is awesome, chefsteps should hire you to do their parametric recipes.
  • elchief 6 minutes ago
    here's kenji's recipe (footnote 64 in the article, in case you missed it lol):

    https://www.seriouseats.com/light-and-fluffy-pancakes-recipe

  • einpoklum 37 minutes ago
    That's serious commitment for sure, but - I don't know, the image makes it seems like he low-key burned his pancakes 8-\
  • Finnucane 54 minutes ago
    I will do yeast-raised waffles but usually don't bother with pancakes. I usually don't have buttermilk so I mix yogurt and milk. I just eyeball it, about 1/4-1/3 yogurt makes a good consistency. While food science is fun, there's no way I'm doing that much work on a Saturday morning.
  • moron4hire 1 hour ago
    > the use of imprecise cup measurements rather than weights

    It really does not matter. Both because variation doesn't matter and because weights vs volumes are not going to give a big enough variation to really be detectable.

    • chickensong 42 minutes ago
      It doesn't matter for small items like salt or baking soda, but you can get pretty different results scooping flour depending on how compressed the flour storage is, and how much the scooping packs down that flour.

      There's a reason that every bakery measures by weight. If you value consistency, and recipes should be consistent, you go by weight. You can say it doesn't matter, and in some cases it might not, but the entire baking industry doesn't agree with your statement.

      • moron4hire 5 minutes ago
        Flour is always the canonical example and I flat out reject it. It's not true. If you think it's true, you've convinced yourself it's true to avoid addressing other problems in process you have.

        Here's a thing: a given volume of flour is going to have a different weight in different days that have different ambient humidity levels.

        The tools of the kitchen are imprecise. The environment is not well controlled. And human taste is robust against micro variations.

    • gbear605 20 minutes ago
      It certainly can matter for proper baking (which this recipe seems to be?), though for traditional pancakes I would never bother. But there's a reason that bakeries weigh their ingredients. It's more consistent and allows for different people to get more similar results.
      • moron4hire 6 minutes ago
        The baking industry isn't really measuring by weight, they are measuring by bag, which happens to be delineated in weight.

        Look, this is arm chair, YouTube cooking. There is so much variation in recipes that 10% here and there is not going to make or break any recipe.

        There is zero ability to make a "universally better" version of a recipe by micro optimizing ingredients. For one thing, you can't easily control temperature and humidity variations on your environment. If people think 2% difference in flour content is going to make or break their bread recipe, then daily humidity variations will definitely have an impact. But it doesn't, really. It's the sort of thing people blame when they don't have good process or good technique.

        For another thing, there is no way to evaluate the outcome as "better". Better for you, perhaps, but even then, it's mostly psychosomatic. I've doubled the amount of baking soda in a recipe before and it has had zero impact. I've never measured flour by weight and my cookies come out exactly the same as my wife's when she breaks out the microscale

        I've been cooking for a long time. I have family members who refuse to come to Easter Dinner unless I'm the one cooking. I barely measure anything, ever. Even when I'm baking. It matters to have things in the right ballpark, but 5% variations don't matter.

  • victorkulla 40 minutes ago
    [flagged]