The Secret Ingredient To Better Pancakes

Hi Bold Bakers, I've got a very special guest here with us today, Dee Levy-Francis from OneSarcasticBaker.com. Hi everybody, super excited to be here. Dee has been sharing recipes with us on BiggerBolderBaking.com which have been really amazing. She is an amazing baker, however she is here today because she brought out this amazing book, Baking Science. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your book? Yes, I'm excited about this book because not only is it full of recipes, it talks about the science of baking and how you can elevate it while baking and have fun. Yeah, so Dee goes next level science. So chocolate pancakes are what we're making today from your book, tell us a little bit about it. Ok, so we all love chocolate, we all love pancakes, but this recipe has a secret ingredient that really takes it to the next level, and let's do it. Ok, let's go find out. So let's get into the recipe and make our batter. Dee, consider me your sous chef, so you just tell me what to do and I will do it. Alright, so it doesn't get easier than pancakes. You mix all your dry ingredients, and then you mix all of the wet ingredients, and then you mix them together, and you're done. Perfect. Alright, so we're going to start with flour. So flour is going to be our binder, it's going to be what gives us all the structure. And let's add the cocoa powder first, and I want to say that cocoa powder being 70% starch, I like to replace, generally when I bake with cocoa powder, I replace 50% of the flour with cocoa powder because it's mainly starch. And I like to use it more than I like to use melted chocolate because it gives you a better, more enhanced chocolate flavor. You know what, I'm starting to realize that. Yeah, yeah, I made ice cream recently with cocoa powder and it does add an extra layer. It does, yeah. Okay, so we have also sugar, and sugar is one of the most fascinating ingredients in baking because first of all, it provides sweetness, right? It also, sugar really loves water, so it takes water and moisture from the air, from wherever it can, and that kind of like balances the cocoa butter, swallowing all the water. Yeah, yeah. So it's perfect. And, and this is very important, especially when we make this type of baked goods because we don't aerate with whipping the eggs or whipping the butter, the space between the sugar granulate is air, so we're adding additional air to our butter, which is, isn't it fun? Oh, I'm super happy. Yeah, no, that's really fascinating. These are things that I don't think about, that I don't know about. I know, and once it's in your mind, it doesn't leave. Yeah. It's like a song, it's like the Macarena, you know? It doesn't leave. Oh great, now that's in my head. Sorry. And then of course, baking powder, because again, we don't have any aeration, so that's about it, and then we're going to mix it, we're going to do like, take a minute, like take your time doing it because you don't want to have clumps of baking powder or clumps of chocolate, and then we're going to set it aside. Perfect. And then we're going to go to our wet ingredients. Okay, tell me what we have over here. So we have milk, and of course you can use heavy cream or alternative almond milk or oat milk, whatever you like, even coffee. Egg. We're going to whisk the egg in, and egg is what's going to bring everything together, so we're going to have something that we can hold instead of just eat with a spoon. We're going to add vanilla. Vanilla. I love vanilla. I know. Do you use a lot of vanilla in your baking? I do. Unless I'm out of it, but I do. Sometimes I like put that a little bit behind my ear because I love the smell. Is that why you smell so good? Oh yeah. I know, forget about the high fancy, just a little bit of vanilla. And we're going to use olive oil. Okay, so tell me about this. Okay, so in general, you don't have to use any fat when it comes to pancakes, but I like to use it because one, fat is flavor, and two, fat gives us moistness. And I like to use olive oil because olive oil goes so well with chocolate. It's really good. We tend to think about fat in baking as butter, sometimes shortening, and maybe, maybe oil. But fat is such an important ingredient and we can add so many options. You can play with it so much. You can use any type of oil because it has different flavors and it has different color and you can use butter or shortening or grapeseed oil or olive oil. It's just like, I love it. Yeah. I've read that in your book, which I just find fascinating because I will admit that recently I have only started baking with olive oil and not just in olive oil cakes, but one of my favorite recipes on my website is for a chewy chocolate chip cookie and the main ingredient to that is olive oil. Did you like those? Oh my god. What else are you going to say? Did you like those? I have some in the fridge right now. I adore them and that nuttiness, the nuttiness and saltiness that you get from the olive oil. Okay. So tell me what's next chef. We're going to pour the liquid over the dry and mix it all together. Now when it comes to this type of baked goods, which is pancakes, quick breads and muffin, the important thing is like to mix just until the dough is hydrated, the butter is hydrated and the lumps, do not get rid of the lumps. Do not be scared. Like they're not, you're not going to have lumps in your mouth. The lumps, like we said, with the sugar, contain the air. So if you get rid of the lumps, you get rid of the air and then you're going to have flat pancakes. Not only flat, they're going to be chewy because you developed too much gluten. How is this looking? I think it's fine. You can just. Will I just scoop that a little bit? Oh, I could do a little. And you see the baking powder is already working. I can see it's already activated. But it's double acting a bit, right? Yes. So it's going to. It's still going to activate. Activate in the. Great. Yes. And now we can cook it. Okay. So let's head over to the griddle and cook these off. Let's do it. So whatever, whatever fat you use, whether it's oil, butter or spray oil, make sure that you wipe it. Otherwise, all the access is going to make it very hard to flip the pancakes. And that tip I learned from Gemma. So you scoop a third of a cup or more or less, depending on how big or how small you want it to be. And for about three minutes, the pancakes should go from very glossy to like matte and some bubbles on this, on the top. So do you tell me how you got into baking? Okay. So I think I've always had a very sweet tooth always. And I think baking is kind of like an extension. I didn't start really baking until 2008 when I moved to the state from Israel. Very quickly became like an obsession. And I know you know what I'm talking about. Either you bake, you think about baking, you talk about baking or you dream about baking. Like that's it. Ever since then, I'm like, I'm not turning back. I'm going to focus everything on baking. And I started reading, researching, taking classes, experimenting, and that was it. I think, you know, as the older I get, the more I want to educate myself about what you really hone in on, it's just more and more important to me, especially because we put recipes out there on a daily basis. We get questions like, why is this happening? Why is that happening? And for the longest time, I didn't need to know that information. I was like, now I do. So like, it's really fascinating. And people like want, in my opinion, want that information because it is, it's chemistry and it's science. And you want to know like the why. I always say that baking is a science, but it's not rocket science. Oh my God, so true. But it's just, I've read your book, like from cover to cover, and there's just so much information. But like you said, it's practical when you think about it in a practical way. Yeah, yeah. It's what I wanted to create was essentially a toolbox. I didn't want to give you a recipe. I want to give you a toolbox so you can create whatever you want or even troubleshoot if your cake is too flat, or the pancakes didn't come out and like take all the frustration out and replace it with curiosity. And I hope everybody will like it. Yeah, for sure. The recipe yields about eight pancakes. Of course, if you make them bigger, you're going to have less if you make them smaller, you're going to have more. Look at that. Beautiful. It smells amazing. Let's head over to the counter and get stuck in. So I came prepared. I've got my plate. Now let's stack our pancakes. Yeah, the taller the better. So after you stack them, drizzle with some chocolate sauce, some berries, even whipped cream or nuts and dig in. Oh, wow. Look at those. So fluffy and moist and delicious. Oh my goodness. Hmm. Dee, these are so moist, right? It's the olive oil because it's liquid. It makes its way around the flour molecules very fast, very easily. So instead of having dry, you have something moist and delicious and I'm going to go back to eating. So here's what I want you to do. Follow Dee on all her social media. Also check out BiggerBolderBaking.com because Dee shares with us really lovely recipes. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for having me. It's been very delicious. And check out her brand new book. You're going to love it. Baking Science. And I'll see you guys soon. Bye. I'm going to eat more pancakes. Oh yeah, absolutely.