When making this dish I learned that the key throughout the whole process is delicacy. The ingredients of the pancake is similar to any other recipe but the key difference is how the eggs are handled. The eggs were separated by white and yolk in two different bowls, the yolk being mixed with every ingredient other that the granulated sugar. The egg whites are to be whipped to a stiff peek to create the pancakes fluff. The mixing of yolk with the vanilla extract ,flour, baking powder and milk was very simple, it just needs to be whisked until homogeneous. Although I didn’t have whole milk at the time, I did have condensed milk which I knew was milk with the water mostly evaporated and sweetened with sugar. Instead of buying some more milk for this, I added slightly more water than the volume of condensed milk and mixed it. The egg whites I had in a separate bowl needed more preparation and precaution beforehand.
To create stiff or even soft peeks in the egg whites the hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids of the proteins needed to organize itself in which former attaches to the air and latter attaches to the water. The egg couldn’t be used right out of the fridge, it had to be room temperature for the individual amino acids to separate quicker if not the whisking process would take hours. I microwaved the eggs in the bowl enough to make them warm but not enough to solidify it, separated the whites from the yolk being extra careful to not pierce the yolk membrane with the shell to keep fat from interfering with the whisking. The mixer was on low speed initially, to incorporate small air bubble for the amino acids to easily attach themselves to, then increased the speed. When the albumen became fairly foamy I added a third of the sugar, which I grounded beforehand, and continued mixing until it started to looked solid white, then lastly, when it early resembled the consistency of yogurt. Using the an electric mixer sped up the process and it took 5 minutes, maximum, to achieve stiff peaks.
To mix the whites with the yolk I used a rubber spatula and shoved a third of the egg whites into the yolk and gently mixed it by flipping it with the spatula until there was no more egg whites left, as to not release the air. I poured three spoonfuls unto the lightly oiled pan, set to extremely low heat , the batter not dispersing more than four cementers then topped each pancake with the remaining batter evenly with two more spoonfuls each as high as I could and cooked for three minutes with the lid on .I lifted the lid and placed another two spoonfuls of the batter on top of each slightly solidified base, placed the lid back on and repeated this process until the batter was finished. I then turned the stove to around three, i.e medium-low heat, and cooked for three and a half minutes. A good metric to determine if the side is cooked is if you’re met with the instant smell of pancake after lifting the lid. I flipped the pancakes carefully and slowly so the spatula doesn’t touch the other pancakes. I dripped water in the pan to steam it and placed the lid on for another three minutes. In hind sight I should have dripped water in the pan when cooking the first side.
To garnish, I used blueberry sauce, some butter and the last bit of strawberries from the fridge.The sauce was just blueberry, water, sugar and lemon juice, because I don’t like overly sweet tasting things, set to a boil. Biting into the pancake, it was naturally very fluffy and sweeter than I thought despite having one and a a half teaspoon of sugar but the sour blueberry sauce balanced it out nicely. The pancakes had a nice browning on both sides and the inside where a solid color. When you cut into it it sounds like multiple, miniature bubble wrap being popped at the same time.I wish the pancakes were just a few millimetres higher, I might have poured too many spoonfuls each time which caused the pancakes to incrementally spread out. Regardless, I had fun making this dish, it very unforgiving and every detail, each step of the way, is shown in the final product.
