Hello users of the internet! On 14 February 2020, I had attended a pancake workshop at the Science Library. (I still find it hard to believe that we were allowed to make our own pancake batters in THE science library!) We had to randomly choose whether we were to make the traditional flat or the Japanese Souffle pancakes. Fortunately, we were assigned the Japanese Souffle Pancakes which were harder to do… Yay at least now i have something fun to write about in this post! The ingredients can be seen below.

The Batter

Before you scroll down to the results, it would be fun if you could try and guess if our souffle pancake succeeded just by looking at the photos and the steps we took in the batter and meringue sections!

Firstly, we whisked an egg yolk together with sugar, milk and oil in 3 batches. A neutral flavour oil was used instead butter since oil is a liquid and can coat flour proteins better, giving a more consistent texture. (Note: NEUTRAL flavour, nobody wants a sesame tasting pancake.)

Then, all-purpose flour and baking powder was sifted into the same bowl with the yolk and whisked generously. baking powder and baking soda is actually different! Baking soda is really just sodium bicarbonate (a base) whereas baking powder is baking soda and a powdered acid. ACID? Yes, we need the acid to react with the base to form carbon dioxide so that our souffle would not become crepes when cooking sometime later; this is the roele of the leavening agent. Honestly, I would have preferred if we use buttermilk (acid) +baking soda instead of baking powder, since buttermilk would elevate the taste of our pancakes. Also, we have to sift our flour so as to prevent lumps in our batter and ensure even mixing. At this point, we have to whisk really hard so that we can form gluten, the holy grail of baking formed by mixing glutenin, gliadin and proteins in flour with water. Holding the batter together (structural integrity)? Gluten. Trapping air bubbles to make the pancake flufflier? Gluten. Celiac disease? No gluten please.

Then, we added a pinch of salt and a some vanilla extract. Remember the oil we had added previously? Well oil actually weakens the gluten network, so we add a little salt to tighten it slightly (not too much because we aren’t making bread). Furthermore, salt and vanilla extract helps enhance the flavour of the souffle! A photo of our batter is shown together with the meringue below.

white= meringue, bottom right corner= batter

The Meringue

Next we made the delicious meringue. Egg whites were whisked together with sugar until shiny stiff peaks were formed. I find it really amazing that beating any food (or anyone) brings them down, but beating egg whites just serves fluffs them up… really motivational. Egg whites are 90% water, and the rest of it being protein. Proteins are made of amino acids, which contains hydrophilic (water-loving) and hydrophobic(water-hating) parts; thus when we beat the egg whites and incorporate air into them, parts of the protein attaches itself to the water while the hydrophobic parts attaches itself to the air. This unfolding of the proteins causes the meringue to fluff up and is also why we do not incorporate yolks (they contain fat which interferes with this process)

Sugar is hygroscopic and cannot be added at the start, since they would interfere with the unfolding of the proteins and the souffle would not be as fluffy. Sugar must also not be added too late, since they would either not be able to completely dissolve, or they would draw out moisture from your egg white foam, causing the structure to collapse. Before this workshop, I really did not know that there was actually an order you had to follow when making a meringue! (No wonder my meringue failed) We had whisked the sugar in in batches, until stiff peaks had formed.

The end product

We folded our meringue into the batter gently batch by batch, praying that our mixture does not deflate.

Finally, we cook the pancake at low heat, since heating at high heat would cause the proteins in the egg (in the batter) to denature and stiffen up quickly, so we would not achieve a soft and bouncy texture. We used dry heat cooking (on a science laboratory hotplate.. because why not), which gave our souffle the beautiful browning thanks to the Maillard Reaction!I researched abit and found out that dry heat cooking is actually NOT suited for slow cooking. Perhaps in the future I would try and see if souffles can be made using moist heat cooking, stay tuned! (Some shots of our souffle below, thanks for reading!)