[HN Gopher] John Locke's recipe for Pancakes (2021)
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       John Locke's recipe for Pancakes (2021)
        
       Author : pepys
       Score  : 254 points
       Date   : 2022-01-30 01:14 UTC (21 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (rarecooking.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (rarecooking.com)
        
       | guerrilla wrote:
       | Locke is a bit early for this, but if you like this kind of
       | thing, then you'll love Townsends' channel about 18th century
       | living, focused on cooking.[1] Seriously, they have over 18
       | seasons worth of "18th Century Cooking"[2]
       | 
       | 1. https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson
       | 
       | 2.
       | https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4e4wpjna1vx3DFU7r7gj...
        
         | hkc wrote:
         | Tasting History with Max Miller is good too!
         | https://www.youtube.com/c/TastingHistory/videos
        
           | 1MachineElf wrote:
           | FWIW, I had some pancakes made after watching this.
        
           | billfruit wrote:
           | I think Taking History has a broader coverage, his videos are
           | longer and includes quite a lot of historical context and not
           | just limiting to 17th/18th centuries or to American/English
           | dishes.
        
         | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
         | Here is Tasting History's Pancake episode, from the same period
         | as Locke. It appears to be similar, using cream and nutmeg, and
         | Max whips the egg and cream for a while to add air:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD3WKbXhm6M
        
           | bobthepanda wrote:
           | English Heritage also does a series on Victorian-era cooking:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHvpD-fy2c0
        
         | iancmceachern wrote:
         | And Glen and Friends
         | https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCsU15yvILBmnHPeAf4SFVaQ#menu
        
       | nomilk wrote:
       | George Orwell on the perfect cup of tea may also be of interest:
       | https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
        
         | ritter2a wrote:
         | Very interesting! Quite amusing that adding milk seems to be an
         | unquestionable truth while adding sugar is considered
         | destroying the flavour and adding pepper (which is not uncommon
         | in India) appears to be unthinkable.
         | 
         | But I find it most surprising that the detailed rules say
         | nothing about how long to steep the tea.
        
         | loceng wrote:
         | "Add a dash of truth and justice"
        
         | taejo wrote:
         | Orwell is also good on pubs:
         | https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
        
           | nomilk wrote:
           | TIL George Orwell's preferred vessel was a "strawberry-pink
           | china pewter mug".
        
       | mmcgaha wrote:
       | Looks more like a crepe than a pancake.
        
         | kemayo wrote:
         | Bear in mind that you're reading a recipe written by John
         | Locke, an English philosopher. So he's using the English
         | definition of "pancake", which is nothing like the American
         | definition.
        
           | kragen wrote:
           | He wrote it before 01694. Most of the English settlers who
           | would define the American dialect of English hadn't moved to
           | America yet in 01694, so there is no particular reason to
           | expect Locke's definition to be more similar to the modern
           | English definition than to the modern American definition.
           | (And Nicosia claims that the result was in fact in between,
           | even though she didn't beat it for the full 15 minutes.)
        
             | mongol wrote:
             | Curious: Why do you write it 01694 and not 1694?
        
               | JetSetWilly wrote:
               | > nutmeg is toxic to humans in surprisingly small
               | amounts. I wouldn't eat half a nutmeg by myself in one
               | sitting!
               | 
               | It seems to be an affectation encouraged by the Long Now
               | Foundation: https://longnow.org/ideas/02013/12/31/long-
               | now-years-five-di...
        
               | mongol wrote:
               | I can kind of understand it if you develop a database
               | schema. But I don't see the point for regular text. No
               | constraints exist, you can write whatever numbers you
               | want.
        
               | dorfsmay wrote:
               | And, it made me wonder if it was an octal representation
               | of something.
        
               | jameshart wrote:
               | Long now philosophy is that writing years that way
               | encourages you to think about history on a different
               | scale. To consider the date now as being near the
               | _beginning_ of a long future of history, rather than as
               | at the end of a long line of history. Or, when looking at
               | a historical date like 01694 to realize it's not so very
               | far from 02022.
        
               | Freak_NL wrote:
               | This particular affectation seems really far from
               | overcoming its current limitation of being a readability
               | roadblock.
        
               | wizzwizz4 wrote:
               | I didn't find it particularly bad for readability. Then
               | again, I'm used to ISO dates (2022-01-30).
        
               | Freak_NL wrote:
               | It's the leading zero that throws me off and makes me
               | look for a day-of-month or month number in a string that
               | is too short to have one _and_ a leading zero. ISO 8601
               | dates are fine.
        
               | mark-r wrote:
               | ISO 8601 dates are perfect! It's too bad they're not more
               | popular.
               | 
               | I tried to push for them in labels used in a
               | manufacturing plant with locations both in the U.S. and
               | Ireland. Seems like a slam dunk because it eliminates the
               | confusion about whether the month or day comes first. In
               | the end I had to compromise on the month specified by
               | abbreviation rather than number: 2022-Jan-30.
        
               | foobar1962 wrote:
               | Being HN my guess is avoiding the Y10K error. You're
               | either part of the solution or part of the problem.
        
         | GlennS wrote:
         | This is a dialects of English thing.
         | 
         | In Britain: pancakes don't use baking powder. They're flat like
         | a slighly thicker crepe.
         | 
         | I would describe a thick fluffy pancake made with baking powder
         | as a "Scotch pancake", but in Australia, the USA, Canada and
         | New Zealand, that style is just a "pancake".
        
           | kemayo wrote:
           | I'm sympathetic to the confusion, despite having a British
           | origin myself, just because the thick-fluffy pancake is
           | objectively more similar to other things we call "cake".
        
             | lostlogin wrote:
             | This sort of thing has gone to court - the biscuit versus
             | cake saga of Jaffa Cakes
             | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_Cakes
        
             | jahewson wrote:
             | Wait until you hear about flapjacks.
        
               | throwaway984393 wrote:
               | And johnnycakes!
        
           | philliphaydon wrote:
           | Pancakes in nz are not thick. You get pancakes which are like
           | crepes, or pikelets which are like small American pancakes.
           | 
           | American pancakes are disgusting. It's like the equivalent of
           | American carbon bacon.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | djur wrote:
             | More pancakes and bacon for us, I guess. Don't know why you
             | felt it necessary to make that unwarranted attack, though.
        
             | GlennS wrote:
             | Apologies, thanks for the correction.
        
             | mathewsanders wrote:
             | Hmm. Maybe it's regional? I spent years of my life finding
             | all the best pancakes and French Toast of Auckland cafes
             | and they all (at least aspired) to be thick and fluffy-
             | unless they were intentionally crepes which are also very
             | common.
             | 
             | The outlier I remember being when McDonalds started doing
             | breakfast and they offered pancakes - I think I got them
             | once when I had a super early flight at the airport and
             | they were almost inedible- thin and rubbery! Easily the
             | worst pancakes I've had in my life.
        
         | bobthepanda wrote:
         | That would essentially be the difference, yes.
         | 
         | Crepes are mostly the same general idea as pancakes without
         | raising agents; this recipe doesn't contain baking powder
         | because it hadn't been invented yet.
         | 
         | Food evolution is quite interesting. Most recipes we consider
         | traditional standardized maybe 50-100 years ago. A pretty good
         | example of how far a recipe can evolve is how mincemeat pies
         | evolved from containing mostly meat, some fruit, and spices in
         | the 11th century, to the modern incarnation which has no meat
         | and is just fruit and spices.
        
         | Closi wrote:
         | John Locke was British, and in England we generally call
         | crepe's pancakes (or at least, they are much more similar to a
         | crepe, for instance on pancake day/shrove tuesday we will eat a
         | thin pancake rather than an american-style pancake).
         | 
         | What American's call a pancake would be an 'American pancake'
         | over here.
        
         | cascom wrote:
         | They remind me of "Swedish Pancakes" which are kind of in-
         | between an American pancake and a crepe.
         | 
         | No idea if they are actually Swedish but you can buy Lund's
         | Swedish pancake mix in the US and you get something similar
        
           | mongol wrote:
           | I think they are more similar to a crepe than an american
           | pancake. They contain no rising agent, but a crepe is
           | thinner.
        
           | chucky wrote:
           | I'm Swedish, and I can confirm that all my Swedish cookbooks
           | contain recipes for "pancakes", "crepes" and "American
           | pancakes", which are definitely 3 different things, and a
           | Swedish "pancake" is a lot like you describe it.
           | 
           | I also have a recipe for what my cookbook calls Danish
           | pancakes, or "aebleskiver" in Danish. Those are more like
           | small round doughnuts prepared in a special frying pan. I'm
           | not sure if the Danish would consider those "pancakes"
           | though.
        
             | niho wrote:
             | To further complicate the pancake taxonomy there is also
             | the curiosity of "plattar". Very small pancakes made in a
             | special frying pan for more festive occasions. Not sure
             | about their origin, but they are very common in Smaland in
             | the south of Sweden.
             | 
             | https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plattar#/media/Fil%3APlattl
             | a...
        
               | vidarh wrote:
               | Plattar sounds a bit like Norwegian lapper. E.g.:
               | 
               | https://www.tine.no/oppskrifter/kaker/vafler-og-
               | smakaker/sve...
               | 
               | But my favourite variant is rislapper, where the starting
               | point is cold rice porridge:
               | 
               | https://www.tine.no/oppskrifter/kaker/vafler-og-
               | smakaker/ris...
               | 
               | As a child we'd often have rice porridge one day, and if
               | there were leftovers we'd have rislapper a day or two
               | later.
               | 
               | You can make it in a regular pan, as the mix is thick
               | enough it'll stay together, so just make them small.
               | 
               | (I strongly object, however, to the use of sour cream,
               | jam and pistachio's to serve with them, and wonder what
               | they'd been smoking - I prefer butter and a sprinkling of
               | sugar)
        
               | stevesimmons wrote:
               | Two more types of small pancakes are poffertjes (Dutch),
               | which sound a lot like your Swedish plattar, and pikelets
               | (English).
        
               | unwind wrote:
               | Swedish cookery geek who loves visiting the Netherlands:
               | poffertjes have depth, the pan has deep round-bottomed
               | indents to hold batter. Swedish plattar are also made in
               | a special pan (typically cast iron and from someone's
               | granny) but the indents are circular and low, just maybe
               | 3 mm deep. Lucky this is right after breakfast or I would
               | be hungry now.
        
             | olau wrote:
             | I don't know how they were made tradionally, but today as
             | you say aebleskiver (apple disks) are not flat, they are
             | spherical. That is why you need the special pan. Also,
             | today most people don't put apple pieces inside them,
             | instead eat them with some kind of jam, strawberry or
             | raspberry.
             | 
             | Pancake seems to be reserved for flat things, so yeah
             | aebleskiver would not be considered pancakes.
        
             | mark-r wrote:
             | I have an aebleskiver cast iron pan. Only used it a couple
             | of times, seems like a lot of trouble for what you get.
        
           | bjelkeman-again wrote:
           | My version of them are as follows, from start to finished
           | meal in 15 minutes with two good crepe pans.
           | 
           | This is per person, so for two people you double it, except
           | for the extra egg.
           | 
           | 1 egg (plus one extra)
           | 
           | 2 decilitre (dl) of milk, roughly two cups
           | 
           | 1 dl of flower
           | 
           | 1 pinch of salt
           | 
           | 1 tablespoon of sugar
           | 
           | 1/2 dl of olive oil
           | 
           | Lots of butter to fry in
           | 
           | Mix eggs and half the milk. Add the flower, salt and sugar
           | and mix until it is a smooth batter. Add the remaining milk
           | and oil. Mix until smooth. Fry in butter, about a teaspoon,
           | on a hot pan (7/10) until dry on top, flip over, for 30 sec.
           | Done.
           | 
           | Serve with sweet jam, whipped cream, or butter and sugar,
           | icecream. Go to town, enjoy.
        
       | utool wrote:
       | I can confirm- this recipe is dank
        
       | rvense wrote:
       | Never trust a skinny cook!
       | 
       | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Jo...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | CHB0403085482 wrote:
       | My Pancake Batter: 3 large chicken eggs 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup
       | milk 1/2 cup sugar (add less if you don't want it so sweet but
       | there will be less caramelising)
       | 
       | Mix well until it's all thoroughly homogeneous. Cook on a flat
       | pan using the 1/2 cup size.
       | 
       | Bonus: put the pancake batter in a baking pan, add sliced fruit
       | and it's now a clafoutis.
        
       | huhtenberg wrote:
       | You can subst orange blossom water for Cointreau or Grand
       | Marnier.
       | 
       | In fact try adding these into regular crepe, pancake or French
       | toast batter. A tablespoon or so adds an absolutely wonderful
       | nuance to the result.
        
         | OJFord wrote:
         | Cf. crepes Suzette, e.g.
         | https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/crepes-suzette
        
           | huhtenberg wrote:
           | Sure, but that's not even remotely the same.
        
         | buescher wrote:
         | Yes. Whipped cream too. Orange liqueur is a nice twist anywhere
         | you might use vanilla.
         | 
         | Also, for a dryer, more grown-up flavor, try a spoonful of good
         | cognac instead of vanilla.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | assttoasstmgr wrote:
       | Jeff Bezos, a notorious pancake aficionado, per the NY Times is
       | allegedly fond of a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, which he
       | would make for executives that would visit his home.
       | 
       | https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/joy-of-cooki...
       | 
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/technology/jeff-bezos-ama...
        
         | 542458 wrote:
         | Speaking of old pancake recipes and the Times, I'm very fond of
         | the NYT 1966 Dutch Baby recipe. It's said to be Amanda Hesser's
         | favourite recipe.
         | 
         | https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/1477263398303932420
         | 
         | Sorry for the Twitter link, but unlike the actual recipe on
         | their site, there's no paywall here. Note it requires a cast
         | iron skillet, which isn't clearly called out here. Serve it
         | with some syrup and fried apple slices.
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | I thought he was more into space cake ...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | vba616 wrote:
       | "Melt it to oyle, & take off the skum"
       | 
       | Ghee!
        
         | eps wrote:
         | Not quite. This keeps all milk solids.
        
           | foobar1962 wrote:
           | Ah, thanks for saying that. I was thinking I could cheat and
           | use ghee instead of melting the butter myself.
        
             | jfengel wrote:
             | You can do that, though it won't brown quite as well.
             | 
             | I generally skip the skimming step, though it can burn if
             | the heat is too high. Ghee is fantastic for high heat
             | cooking.
        
           | vba616 wrote:
           | How could it mean that?
        
       | minitoar wrote:
       | That's a lot of nutmeg. I'd definitely put less.
        
         | eps wrote:
         | That's a ginourmous amount of eggs too.
         | 
         | This will taste _very_ eggy. It 's almost an omelette.
        
         | aunty_helen wrote:
         | I would add more. 3 whole nutmegs grated, hold all other
         | ingredients.
         | 
         | The pancakes will start to take effect after 2 or so hours.
        
           | ExtraE wrote:
           | Have you done this? What's it like?
        
             | petepete wrote:
             | Heavenly!
        
             | nestorD wrote:
             | To die for!
        
       | arketyp wrote:
       | I recently discovered you can toss up a flour + baking soda +
       | water (+ salt) batter and cook it in the microwave in a minute.
       | The sponge texture is perfect for dipping in olive oil.
        
         | dtgriscom wrote:
         | Recipe!
        
         | kd5bjo wrote:
         | Do you mean baking powder? Plain soda usually requires some
         | kind of acid to activate it.
        
           | arketyp wrote:
           | Yes, in fact, that's what I meant! Thanks. I managed to mess
           | up a three ingredient recipe, amazing.
        
       | codingclaws wrote:
       | For pancakes I only use half a banana (mashed) and 3 eggs.
        
         | moron4hire wrote:
         | That's not a pancake. That's a banana omlet.
        
       | pugworthy wrote:
       | Was this some kind of lost recipe?
        
       | telesilla wrote:
       | I'm a fan of the Dutch pancake, fluffy and oven-baked. I'm
       | assuming they use baking powder for the fluffiness. The place I
       | used to frequent when in Amsterdam has long gone but my heavens,
       | they made an amazing banana baked pancake, with powdered sugar
       | and genuine maple syrup.
        
         | vincentmarle wrote:
         | I second this, I've never had an American pancake that came
         | close to a Dutch one.
        
         | hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
         | It's not really a pancake if it's baked now is it? Every
         | "pancake" I can think of is always pan-fried. What is it called
         | in Dutch?
        
           | ksherlock wrote:
           | If it's a "Dutch baby" pancake, they're baked in frying pan.
           | But they only thing Dutch about them is the name. They are,
           | in fact, an American invention.
        
             | Freak_NL wrote:
             | Funny; most Dutchmen won't know what is meant by a 'Dutch
             | pancake' baked in an oven. There is indeed nothing Dutch
             | about it. Pancakes here are similar to the British ones;
             | thicker than crepes, not fluffy like American pancakes.
             | Pancakes are still a popular treat for children, and a good
             | authentic pancake restaurant is certainly not the worst
             | place you can end up in.
             | 
             | (The crepes you can buy with Nutella on it every 50m in
             | tourist traps1 are only for money laundering and foreign
             | tourists still struggling to get a grip on Euro conversion
             | rates.)
             | 
             | 1: A good deal of Amsterdam's historic city centre.
        
       | bcherny wrote:
       | This recipe is 2:2:3 flour to butter to heavy cream! I don't
       | think I've ever seen a pancakes recipe with this much fat. Was
       | this typical for British cooking at the time?
        
         | jfengel wrote:
         | That was my thought as well. That's very, very rich.
         | 
         | But not uncommon. Hannah Glasse's recipe is similar:
         | 
         | https://www.mountvernon.org/inn/recipes/article/paper-pancak...
         | 
         | I wish I could dig up the original quote, but I loved a story
         | from a cookbook owned by Martha Washington, for eggs poached in
         | butter. Paraphrased: "The profligate French use four pounds of
         | butter, but we frugal Americans use only one pound of butter."
         | 
         | They ate a lot of fat, when they could get it. The sort of
         | people who couldn't get it also didn't write cookbooks. Or use
         | so much of an expensive imported spice.
        
       | johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
       | From the looks of that recipe, those sound more like a rich
       | dessert than a breakfast pancake to me!
        
       | dr_dshiv wrote:
       | Antidepressant-level nutmeg in those pancakes.
        
       | bee_rider wrote:
       | Finally, a good reason to have a couple paragraphs before the
       | recipe!
        
       | tanseydavid wrote:
       | Slightly off-topic, this reminds me of one of the most-clever
       | band names ever: "Francis Bakin".
        
         | mark-r wrote:
         | Which reminds me of the funniest name for a pig: Chris P.
         | Bacon.
        
         | woleium wrote:
         | Woosh! Please explain :)
        
           | jahewson wrote:
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon
        
           | aw1621107 wrote:
           | Reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon
        
             | woleium wrote:
             | I got that bit, I thought there was also something clever
             | in the misspelled Bakin I was missing. I guess not :)
        
               | PebblesRox wrote:
               | I assume it's slang for getting high but I'm not sure.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | atulatul wrote:
       | Nostradamus also wrote recipes for jams, etc.
       | 
       | https://botchedandecstatic.tumblr.com/post/8954281467/nostra...
        
         | sackerhews wrote:
         | In the year of a good harvest
         | 
         | I shall take
         | 
         | A bunch of fruits
         | 
         | And another bunch of sugar
         | 
         | Everything will boil
         | 
         | Jam will be made
        
       | dr_dshiv wrote:
       | Pythagorean Pancakes
       | 
       | 3:2:1 ratio. 3 eggs, 2 cups of milk and 1 cup flour. No beans.
       | 
       | It seems heavy on liquid, but it makes lovely, flat crepes.
        
         | dr_dshiv wrote:
         | Actual Recipe from Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras:
         | 
         | "As to food, his breakfast was chiefly of honey; at dinner he
         | used bread made of millet, barley or herbs, raw and boiled.
         | Only rarely did he eat the flesh of victims; nor did he take
         | this from every part of the anatomy. When he intended to
         | sojourn in the sanctuaries of the divinities, he would eat no
         | more than was necessary to still hunger and thirst. To quiet
         | hunger, he made a mixture of poppy seed and sesame, the skin of
         | a sea-onion, well washed, till entirely drained of the outward
         | juice; of the flower of the daffodil, and the leaves of
         | mallows, of paste of barley and pea; taking an equal weight of
         | which, and chopping it small, with Hymettian honey he made it
         | into mass. Against thirst he took the seed of cucumbers, and
         | the best dried raisins, extracting the seeds, and the flower of
         | coriander, and the seeds of mallows, purselain, scraped cheese,
         | meal and cream; these he made up with wild honey."
        
         | OJFord wrote:
         | > Pythagorean
         | 
         | > 3:2:1
         | 
         | Not 5:4:3?
        
           | dr_dshiv wrote:
           | Only if you want pancakes with right angles. Totally
           | impractical!
           | 
           | On the other hand, did you know that the ratio of the volume
           | of a cone to a hemisphere to a cylinder is 1:2:3?
        
             | OJFord wrote:
             | No I didn't, but there's something missing - with the same
             | radius of circle end I assume perhaps?
        
         | dtgriscom wrote:
         | Only works in Euclidean spaces
        
       | guiseroom wrote:
       | My pancake trick is to make very thin pancakes--not quite crepe
       | thin but pretty close--and then have a stack of them. Layered
       | like an actual cake. That's how my grandmother used to make them.
       | They're so much more tasteful when they're not thick and floury.
        
       | thrill wrote:
       | "John Locke was right about almost everything."
        
         | atulatul wrote:
         | Found this in SICP Chapter 1.
         | 
         | The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple
         | ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple
         | ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are
         | made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or
         | complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to
         | take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by
         | which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is
         | separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in
         | their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all
         | its general ideas are made.
         | 
         | John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
        
         | adolph wrote:
         | His cri du coeur echos across space and time.
         | 
         | https://lostpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Don%27t_tell_me_what_I_can...
        
       | klipt wrote:
       | Fun fact: nutmeg is toxic to humans in surprisingly small
       | amounts. I wouldn't eat half a nutmeg by myself in one sitting!
        
         | lostcolony wrote:
         | It's about half the level you'll start feeling the symptoms of
         | toxicity from what I've seen. So you should be fine unless
         | extremely underweight, but I wouldn't sprinkle any nutmeg on my
         | coffee or whathaveyou to pair with it.
        
         | mathewsanders wrote:
         | Cue this chart showing how close the ratio of fetal dose to
         | effective dose of nutmeg is (spoiler it's bad).
         | 
         | https://trevoroldak.com/uploads/drugdoses.jpg
        
           | lostlogin wrote:
           | I assume you mean 'fatal' dose. If not, please explain!
        
         | buescher wrote:
         | I wouldn't eat this whole recipe - half a pound of butter, 7
         | egg yolks, 3/4 pint of heavy cream etc - in one sitting either,
         | even without the nutmeg.
        
         | ericmcer wrote:
         | Whoa this flashed me back to being 14 years old, hearing nutmeg
         | could get you high, and splitting an entire bottle of ground
         | nutmeg with a friend. Felt like I had the flu for 2 days. Yeesh
         | its good young people are resilient.
        
           | Thrw27633 wrote:
           | Should've tried the oil, it's much better. I'm currently
           | investigating it as a microdosing nootropic, and results have
           | been quite positive. I probably wouldn't recommend it for
           | long term consistent usage though, because I would be fearful
           | of long term toxicity build-up. More like an occasional
           | creativity boost.
        
           | kwijybo wrote:
           | I also made the bad decision as a teenager to get high off
           | nutmeg
        
       | Firmwarrior wrote:
       | Why would he beat the batter for 15 minutes? Did flour back then
       | not have as much gluten?
       | 
       | This is all the info I could manage to find about this on my own:
       | (mangled the link since the site is jam-packed with ads and
       | trackers)
       | 
       | www.realsimple (dot) com (slash) food-recipes/cooking-tips-
       | techniques/pancake-secret-ingredient-gluten
        
         | analog31 wrote:
         | My hunch is no baking powder. I've made pancakes without baking
         | powder by heavily beating the eggs before gently folding in the
         | other ingredients. Haven't tried this particular recipe.
        
           | frazbin wrote:
           | Yep that's the one-- gotta get gas into the batter somehow
        
             | Nursie wrote:
             | It so much in an English pancake, which these are in the
             | picture.
             | 
             | English pancakes are flat.
        
             | sandermvanvliet wrote:
             | Throw in some beer, works a charm for the taste too
        
               | lostlogin wrote:
               | Yeasted batter makes amazing waffles and pancakes. You
               | need to make it the day before you use it but it's
               | completely worth it.
        
               | mongol wrote:
               | Beer in pancake batter? Interesting idea, never thought
               | of.
        
               | unionpivo wrote:
               | or just soda water
               | 
               | On new years day (YYYY-1-1) we traditionally make it with
               | champagne
        
               | mongol wrote:
               | Very cool
        
               | kaetemi wrote:
               | Yeah, I always use beer as well. Works great.
               | 
               | 0.2l Milk, 2 eggs, 80g flour, 15g butter, 30g sugar, 85g
               | beer. Mix milk, eggs, and everything else except the
               | butter and beer. Melt the butter and mix it in too. Add
               | beer, drink the rest. Then make pancakes.
        
               | ChoGGi wrote:
               | Never had beer batter? That's a shame
               | 
               | https://www.lacucinaitaliana.com/recipe/cakes-and-
               | desserts/b...
        
         | bcherny wrote:
         | The recipe has 1.5 cups heavy cream, which will become fluffy
         | when you beat it that long, making the pancakes lighter and
         | fluffier.
        
           | buescher wrote:
           | Except you add the cream after beating the eggs and flour in
           | the original recipe.
           | 
           | Today's waffle and some pancake batter recipes will call for
           | beating the eggs until light and fluffy, which takes a few
           | minutes in a mixer and could take 15 minutes by hand. Then
           | you typically fold or mix the flour and dairy (milk, cream,
           | or buttermilk) into the eggs, alternating small amounts of
           | each. Then add the clarified butter. That's how I would adapt
           | the recipe to the use of a mixer.
           | 
           | Also, I would make sure to use salted butter in this recipe
           | or add a small amount of salt.
        
         | mlyle wrote:
         | Flour was not milled as finely or consistently so more mixing
         | was required and gluten development was not as much of a
         | concern.
        
       | hilbert42 wrote:
       | Well, that's interesting. That wasn't in my textbooks.
       | 
       | It certainly makes Locke seem a bit more human.
       | 
       |  _BTW, I 've had a bee in my bonnet for years over examples like
       | this. So much stuff is edited out from what we are taught. Sure,
       | this is trite and somewhat useless example but so often this is
       | not the case.
       | 
       | Another example is documentary footage: almost daily, one sees a
       | tiny snippet of a scene cut of some important news or historical
       | event which disappears within a second before one's taken the
       | scene in. Why bother showing it if the scene is incomprehensible?
       | 
       | What makes this so annoying is that we all know there's more
       | footage as cameramen don't shoot scenes like that (they let the
       | camera run as long as possibke). Unfortunately, the ordinary
       | punter never gets to see the stuff that's left on the cutting
       | room floor._
        
         | jfengel wrote:
         | Much of history is taught on the Great Man Theory, which
         | focuses on individuals doing important things. Their humanity,
         | as well as the contribution of anybody else, is ignored in
         | favor of a simpler narrative of history as a series of great
         | events.
         | 
         | Historians are increasingly looking at history as a fuller
         | story, but that hasn't really trickled down to schools yet. It
         | might engage students more, but it is harder to quiz and isn't
         | seen as inspiring patriotism.
        
       | mynameishere wrote:
       | _This is the right way_
       | 
       | Don't ever say this, because you really don't know when someone
       | will come along and invent baking powder. It basically obsoleted
       | every recipe the way _Dreadnought_ obsoleted every Navy.
        
         | kemayo wrote:
         | You picked a bad recipe to suggest this on, because this isn't
         | the sort of pancake that you'd want to add baking powder to. :D
         | 
         | English-style pancakes (like this) _are_ thicker than crepes,
         | but they 're still thin fried-batter constructs. You don't
         | particularly want them to rise.
        
       | knorker wrote:
       | For any americans here: With the right recipe, are your pancakes
       | edible without simply using them as sponges for high fructose
       | corn syrup?
       | 
       | I'm thinking of the ones with baking powder, that I consider
       | "american pancakes" (but correct me if that's not right).
        
         | mark-r wrote:
         | When I make a batch of pancakes, I always make the first one
         | about 1/3 size as a test to make sure I have the heat correct.
         | Then I eat it straight, no toppings. The rest get syrup.
        
         | mahogany wrote:
         | Sure, just throw some blueberries into the batter. (PS: I only
         | use real maple syrup, but I'm probably pretentious.)
        
         | buescher wrote:
         | I'll take the snide comment at face value. Yes. Besides, you
         | should hear what the American upper middle class thinks of your
         | country's cuisine, wherever you're from, unless it happens to
         | be trendy this week. I'm not a big fan of pancakes from mix
         | either.
         | 
         | America's Test Kitchen had a recipe for blueberry pancakes a
         | number of years ago that I thought was pretty good. You can
         | omit the blueberries of course if you want.
         | 
         | If you're an adult, you don't eat pancakes all the time (you
         | probably shouldn't), you don't pour a sea of syrup onto your
         | pancakes, and you aren't watching every penny, you owe it to
         | yourself to buy real maple syrup. Real butter, too, for that
         | matter.
         | 
         | That said, the corn syrup used as a base for cheap pancake
         | syrup is regular corn syrup, not high fructose, though they are
         | frequently today, not always, sweetened with HFCS. The brand I
         | liked as a kid, Log cabin, has no HFCS. I just looked it up.
         | Back in the wayback machine, old-timers would eat pancakes with
         | Karo syrup, which is plain corn syrup sometimes with vanilla
         | flavoring or molasses added. Some parts of the country, people
         | would eat molasses on pancakes. Probably still do. These habits
         | predate the invention of HFCS, let alone its use in food.
        
       | xenodium wrote:
       | I love pancakes, crepes, etc. If you have a ripe banana
       | available, I'm a fan of this 4-ingredient banana/oats pancake
       | recipe. Blend the following:                   Ripe banana.
       | 2 Eggs.         1/3 cup instant oats.         1/2 teaspoon baking
       | powder.
       | 
       | Low heat. Cooke 3 minutes. Flip. Cook one minute. That's it.
       | 
       | Here's what mine looked like https://xenodium.com/banana-oats-
       | pancakes-recipe
        
         | rahimiali wrote:
         | Upvoted for the subtle and relevant use of "cooke".
        
         | OJFord wrote:
         | Arguably that's an (remarkably homogeneously consisted)
         | omelette?
        
           | xenodium wrote:
           | I expected this too, but is now one of the three pancake
           | recipes I regularly use and on the "healthier" side. Don't
           | over-blend and you should be ok. They do take lower heat to
           | cook (and thus longer to flip) than typical pancakes.
        
         | ngcc_hk wrote:
         | Surprise. Never expect to see a receipt and banana pancake in
         | this web site. So far away from lisp.
         | 
         | Universe nature is emptiness. There is no permanence. Really.
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | specialist wrote:
         | Nice. I'll try this, thanks.
         | 
         | Until then, I'm curious about how much the oats cook thru. As a
         | lover of oatmeal cookies, I prefer the oats to be less detente.
         | Do you let your batter sit for a while, to give the oats time
         | to pre-soften?
         | 
         | I've experimented with "oat milk" as a smoothie base (in lieu
         | of yoghurt). I've read that honey and banana have some enzyme
         | that breaks down the oats. So I toss in one (or both), frappe
         | the oats, then let it sit for at least 1/2 hour. I guess my
         | goal is to make sure my tummy is getting the benefit of
         | whatever nutrients the oats may have.
         | 
         | Home-made oat milk tastes pretty good too, so I don't miss the
         | yoghurt.
         | 
         | Any way. Thanks again.
        
           | PebblesRox wrote:
           | I'm guessing the use of instant oats instead of regular helps
           | them soften faster. I was surprised by how smooth they looked
           | in the photo!
           | 
           | That oat milk sounds good, I'll have to give it a try :)
        
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