Perfect pancakes

What's the secret to fluffy pancakes? Every housewife has asked herself this question at least once. After all, to be honest, some pancakes turn out fluffy, like donuts or crumpets, while others have to be content with flat cakes.

Perhaps someone will say that it’s all about experience and skill that comes with age. But in this case, it turns out that the secret of fluffy pancakes will not yet be revealed to an inexperienced housewife? Is this really so? Today you will get all the information on how to make pancakes fluffy and delicious. Your family will be simply happy.

Tricks for the “lush” shape of ideal pancakes

Soda is often added to kefir dough for pancakes and sometimes the egg-kefir mixture is heated before adding flour. You need to heat it carefully so that raw eggs do not curdle. Good kefir pancakes turn out fluffy - about 2 cm in height.

It is advisable to use a cast iron frying pan (or any other one with a thick bottom) as it may not work well with a Teflon one.
It is better to add butter and soda at the end to make the pancakes more appetizing.
The composition of the dough can be changed depending on your taste and preference, for example, a little more flour or less sugar.
Kefir is suitable for any level of fat content. The main thing is that it is fresh and of high quality.
It is better to mix the dough by hand, as mentioned above, rather than with a mixer.
The lower the amount of sugar, the taller and softer the pancakes

Great option for breakfast

Many mothers and grandmothers know very well how difficult it can be to feed a child in the morning. How much effort, time and energy do you need to spend on this? And the result is not always positive. As a result: the adults are exhausted, and the child is in tears and in a terrible mood. What to do? Is there really no way out? Why not prepare lush and tender pancakes for breakfast instead of annoying porridge? After all, you can serve with them any jam (that your child likes), condensed milk or jams. In order for you to want to eat pancakes, they must be fluffy. We will tell you about this further.

These pancakes always turn out delicious and fluffy. Really perfect. With this recipe you will bake delicious breakfast pancakes for the whole family. With jam, sour cream, honey - very tasty!

Kefir – 500 Milliliters
Wheat flour - 350 grams
Sugar - 1.5-2 tbsp. spoons
Salt - 0.5 teaspoons
Baking powder for dough - 1 teaspoon (or 0.5 teaspoon of soda)
Egg – 1 piece
Vanilla sugar - 0.5 teaspoons
Vegetable oil - 150-200 Milliliters

Number of servings: 4-6

Cooking

Heat kefir to 30 degrees and pour into a bowl.
Add sugar, regular and vanilla.
Add salt and egg, mix.
Add sifted flour and baking powder or soda.
And quickly knead the dough. It should be homogeneous, without lumps. Stir well immediately; I don’t recommend stirring the dough any more.
Heat the frying pan and pour in a layer of vegetable oil about 1 cm. We will fry the pancakes over a little less than medium heat.
Scoop up the dough with a tablespoon and place it in the pan, forming pancakes.
The pancakes will approximately double in size when frying, so place them at a distance from each other.
When the color of the dough on the bottom changes and turns golden, turn the pancakes over.
Fry the pancakes on the other side until the desired degree of goldenness. Place the finished pancakes on a paper towel to absorb excess fat.

To prevent the zucchini pancakes from falling apart, add eggs

You can prepare not only sweet treats.

Pancakes made from:

Liver;
Kabachkov;
Carrots;
Cabbages.

To bake zucchini pancakes, you need to grind the vegetable through a meat grinder or rub it through a fine grater. The resulting mass needs to sit for some time. As soon as it gives juice, it is drained to remove excess liquid. The zucchini is peppered, salted and herbs and garlic are added according to taste. The egg and flour are binding elements so that the pancakes do not fall apart during the frying process. All ingredients are mixed and heat treated in a well-heated frying pan.

Kefir pancakes like fluff

Want to know what the secret trick is? Then read the recipe carefully. I even have 3 of them. Follow exactly the technology described below. I make these pancakes when I want something hearty for breakfast, as they quickly satisfy my hunger and directly charge me with energy.

Ingredients:

250 ml. kefir;
40 ml. water;
1 egg;.
250 g flour;
3 tbsp. Sahara;
0.5 tsp salt;
0.5 tsp soda;
vegetable oil.

Preparation:

Pour kefir and water into a saucepan. Stir and heat until warm. This is the trick - we will use heated kefir. With this kefir, baked goods will be more fluffy.
In another bowl, mix egg, sugar and salt. Add warmed kefir and mix thoroughly. Gradually add flour and stir until lumps disappear. The dough should be viscous and not dripping off a spoon.
If the dough is not thick, add flour. Another secret - add soda at the end and stir well again.
Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and start baking. Remember that you need to make indents between the products so that they do not stick together. It is also worth noting that there is no need to stir the dough in the bowl at all.
Now turn it over to the other side. And already on this side you will see how they rise. And what color do they appear - golden-ruddy...
These pancakes, like fluff, can be served on the table. Bon appetit!

Pancakes in other cuisines of the world

Culinary products similar to pancakes (like Russian pancakes) are also found in other cuisines of the world, of course, with their own characteristics and traditions. This:

Dropcons in Scotland. Literally drop scones - “throw the buns”, more literary - “fallen buns”. Soda is used to rise the dough and the dropscons are fried in a frying pan.
Pancakes are a type of American small, plump pancake. They differ from Russian pancakes in size, appearance and method of preparation. A classic pancake measuring 13 - 15 cm should have a regular round shape and a smooth surface. This is achieved by baking pancakes individually in a dry frying pan. The splendor of the pancake is ensured by baking powder or soda added to the dough.

But I personally consider Hungarian kaiserschmarrn and German pfannkuchen more like pancakes than pancakes, although in the preparation of these dishes and when serving them, you can see similarities with pancakes.

Very briefly, only at the level of a simple mention, she spoke about the varieties of pancakes in other cuisines of the world. If you, my dear readers, are interested in recipes for these dishes, please note this in the comments and I will share my experience and recipes with you.

I think you've noticed that other cuisines around the world use baking powder or baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to make fluffy dough for dropscones, pancakes and other products.

Yes, using soda to leaven dough
is a European tradition.
Its roots go back to 1791, when the French chemist Leblanc synthesized artificial soda. This closely guarded “secret” invention immediately elevated French cookies and biscuits, making them No. 1 in the world.

In Russia, soda began to be used in cooking only in the second half of the 19th century.

And although the use of soda in pancake dough is not an original Russian tradition, this recipe is very popular. It is also in my arsenal.

Pancakes with kefir and yeast

An indisputable fact is that the most fluffy flour products are prepared with yeast. Of course, this takes a little longer than preparing yeast-free analogues, but this time is needed to infuse the dough. Typically, this process lasts approximately 45-60 minutes. Therefore, if you have this time, then by preparing this recipe, the result will definitely please you. The products will turn out lush, rosy, beautiful and very tasty.

We will need:

low-fat kefir - 0.5 liters
flour - 480 gr
dry quick yeast - 1.5 teaspoons
or fresh - 15 g
eggs - 2 pcs
water - 4 tbsp. spoons
sugar - 1.5 - 2 tbsp. spoons
salt - 1/3 teaspoon
vegetable oil - for frying

Preparation:

Let's prepare a light dough. To do this, mix dry instant yeast and a tablespoon of sugar. Add 4 tablespoons of warm water and a little flour. The dough should look like thick cream.
Leave for 10-15 minutes for the dough to “come to life”. If the yeast is fresh, then during this time it will bubble. There is no need to wait for it to increase in volume; if bubbles appear, then the dough will definitely rise.
If you use fresh yeast, you should also dilute it with warm water, add sugar and flour and place in a warm place for 20 minutes. Fresh yeast needs time for the dough to brew and rise a little.
For kneading the dough, we need slightly warm kefir to help the dough rise faster. Therefore, it needs to be warmed up. You can warm it slightly on the stove, or in the microwave. But in such cases I simply put it in a water bath. It is important that it does not curl up, and on fire you may not be able to keep track of it.
Add the warm product to the dough, add the remaining sugar, salt, stir in the eggs and gradually add the sifted flour in small portions. It must be sifted to saturate it with oxygen.
There is no need to pour out all the flour at once. Add gradually and stir. Watch the consistency of the dough; when ready, it should become like thick sour cream, viscous and homogeneous. If you scoop it into a spoon, it will not fall off.
Cover the dough with a napkin and place it in a warm place for 45-60 minutes, during which time it should approximately double in volume. If the room is quite warm and the yeast is fresh, then it can increase in volume faster. Therefore, you need to keep an eye on it so that it does not run away.
Once the dough has risen, there is no need to stir it. Immediately prepare a frying pan, which must be thoroughly heated along with poured oil.
You don’t need to pour a lot of oil, 1 cm at the bottom is enough. There is also no need to pour too little, the products will be fluffy, and with a small amount of oil they will not be baked inside.
Without stirring the dough, take it from one of the edges and place it in hot oil. You can help spread it out with another spoon.
Fry over medium heat until the top surface of the product becomes matte. Small holes should also appear on it. This means that the dough is already baked inside, and the pieces can be turned over to the other side.
You can turn it over with a spatula or a fork, whichever you prefer. Fry on the other side until golden brown. The second side tends to cook much faster, so be careful not to over-brown it.
Prepare a flat plate and line it with several layers of paper towels. Place the finished pancakes on them to drain off excess oil.
Add oil to the pan and warm it up a little so that the new batch also reaches the desired temperature. Place the next batch, fry it on both sides, and so on until all the dough is gone.
You can eat them hot with sour cream or honey, or with jam, washed down with sweet tea or coffee, or milk, whichever you prefer.

I love making these raisin pancakes. If you want to make the same ones, just add washed and dried raisins to the dough. It will rise along with the raisins, and then just toast as usual.

As you can see, the recipe is not at all complicated. Everything is prepared in the same way as in the first recipe, but it takes time for the dough to rise.

The products turn out tasty and very fluffy. After they have already been baked and placed on a plate, the dough does not fall off.

Light carrot salad

Vitamin bomb for those who care about weight a few days before March 8!

It so happens that we cannot imagine a single salad without mayonnaise. But this product can hardly be called useful. In addition, it is high in calories. Therefore, we urgently need to look for a replacement for him.

If you are tired of mayonnaise salads, we suggest you try this simple and amazingly tasty dish! The ingredients for it can be found in every home. And you can prepare this salad in just 20 minutes.

So, quickly write down the recipe!

For the salad you will need:

4 medium carrots
5 eggs
2 cloves garlic
sour cream for dressing
Salt to taste

As mentioned earlier, the salad is incredibly easy to prepare.

To do this, you need to boil the eggs and peel them.

Then peel the carrots and grate them.

Do the same with the eggs, although you can cut them into pieces - whatever you like.

Then squeeze out 2 cloves of garlic and season the salad with sour cream. That's all!

A tasty, and most importantly healthy salad is ready.

Advice

: Instead of eggs, you can add an apple or walnuts to the carrots. Or mix the weight of these ingredients together.

This salad may seem too simple for some. And someone will be completely delighted with it.

In any case, it’s definitely worth making a delicious carrot salad!

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Spicy pancakes on warm kefir with cheese and herbs

If you are tired of sweet pancakes, then you can surprise your family and friends and prepare a savory version - with the addition of fresh herbs and cheese. Moreover, this particular recipe is maximally adapted to the fact that you do not bake them in the traditional way in a frying pan in oil, but bake them in the oven.

Ingredients:

325 ml. kefir;
125 gr. wheat flour;
1 small egg;
A bunch of fresh herbs;
200 gr. hard cheese;
Spices, for example, sweet paprika or turmeric for color - to taste;
A pinch of salt;
Half a spoon of baking soda;
A little flavourless sunflower oil.

How to cook

Heat the kefir on the stove until warm and mix it with the egg in a large bowl. Add salt and spices and mix the resulting mass thoroughly. To ensure an optimal balance of taste, you can add a little granulated sugar to the mixture.
Grate any hard cheese on a fine grater, mix it with chopped herbs, and add to the dough. Now you can add the required amount of flour to the bowl to make the dough homogeneous - mix it well.
Pancakes with warm kefir do not need to be infused before cooking; if you cook them in a frying pan in oil, then simply fry them, and if you use an oven, then just warm it up well, grease the baking sheet and lay out the prepared mass.
To serve the dish, sour cream sauce with garlic and grated fresh or pickled cucumber is ideal, which will highlight the taste of the pancakes.

A few more tips and tricks

The pancake batter should not be too thick so that a spoon can barely turn it. Therefore, be especially careful when taking flour. Its amount per half liter of liquid should not be more than three glasses.
The flour must be sifted; thanks to this simple procedure, pancakes or pancakes turn out more airy and tender. It is best to do this procedure twice.
Don't forget to add oil to the pan where the pancakes are baked. An insufficient amount of it will also not bring the finished product to the desired shape.
Never add baking soda to liquid, especially to kefir (it will immediately extinguish it and the effect of obtaining a fluffy pancake shape will not be achieved). Soda should be mixed with a small amount of wheat flour.
The secret of lush pancakes is quite simple - the desire to please your loved ones with delicious pastries. Of course, you can’t do without the required amount of products either. Delicious and tender pancakes can be prepared not only for breakfast, but also served for an afternoon snack or dinner. Both adults and children simply adore them.

Ideal pancakes on hot kefir with cottage cheese

Cheese pancakes were planned for breakfast, but there was very little cottage cheese to feed the whole family. Don’t be upset, because you can make delicious pancakes. The recipe is ideal for summer, when a ready-made breakfast can be decorated with any fresh berries.

Ingredients:

250 gr. kefir;
100 gr. flour;
200 gr. cottage cheese;
A pinch of salt and soda;
A packet of vanilla sugar with cinnamon;
Vegetable oil for frying;
2 eggs.

Step by step recipe

Beat eggs with vanilla sugar and salt, add cottage cheese and mix. Now you can add soda and mix everything again so that the soda is distributed evenly throughout all the ingredients.
In pancakes made with hot kefir, the most important thing is to correctly introduce the kefir into the egg mixture so that the eggs do not cook. Therefore, kefir needs to be heated and poured in a thin stream, constantly stirring the egg mass.
Now you need to add flour and knead the dough so that it slowly flows from the spoon. All that remains is to fry them in hot vegetable oil. Pancakes made with warm kefir with the addition of cottage cheese have a special taste, delicately creamy, and when serving them to the table it is best to decorate the dish with sweet berries, and there is no need to add granulated sugar to the baked goods themselves.

Place on fire

There are several ways to solve the problem. To begin with, it is recommended to place the mass... on the fire. This method is effective if the dough does not rise. What to do? It is no secret that yeast loves heat and high humidity. These are two factors that need to be taken into account. To make the dough start to rise, add the required amount of yeast.

After this, fill the fireproof container with water and place it at the very bottom of the oven. Place a baking dish filled with dough on the middle shelf. You should first create the desired temperature in the oven - it should be warm, but not hot. We want the dough to rise, not bake. The main thing is that the temperature is above room temperature. The oven door must be closed to avoid overheating.

After removing the container with the dough from the oven, place it on the stove and cover with a damp towel.

Kefir pancakes without soda

To prepare fluffy kefir pancakes according to the classic recipe, without soda, you need to carefully sift the flour, preferably several times. It is also better to use a blender for whipping. After kneading, the finished dough is kept for another fifteen minutes, and only then cooked.

For preparation take:

350 grams of flour;
200 ml kefir;
one egg;
a pinch of salt;
three spoons of sugar;
oil for frying.

Cooking

If you want more tender pancakes, you can reduce the amount of flour by one hundred grams. But then they won't be lush.
Kefir at room temperature is poured into a bowl where all the ingredients will be mixed. Add salt and sugar. Stir until the latter dissolve. Add flour in portions. If it seems that the dough is already the right consistency, stop.
Pour in the egg. Beat the dough thoroughly so that there are no lumps left. Fry the dough poured with a spoon in a frying pan. If desired, you can add finely chopped dried fruits and berries.

Fluffy eclairs in a hurry

If childhood has a taste, then it is undoubtedly the taste of sweet and fluffy eclairs, which bake in exactly an hour and disappear on the holiday table in an instant!

Compound:

Butter - 100 g
Egg - 4 pcs.
Flour - 180 g
Salt - 1/2 tsp.
Water – 250 ml
Custard
Cooking time - 15 minutes
Baking time - 45 minutes

Preparation:

The butter is melted in boiling water.
Salt and flour are added to the water and mixed until a dough forms.
The dough is rolled into a ball, cooked for 2-3 minutes and cooled.
The eggs are introduced into the cold dough one at a time. Each egg is thoroughly mixed before adding the next until the base has an airy and shiny consistency.
The dough is poured into the mold using a teaspoon into tubes from 7 to 10 cm each. The dessert is baked for up to 45 minutes until a golden brown crust forms with the oven closed. Temperature 180 degrees.
Sufficiently cooled eclairs are cut and filled with cream.

Dough for low-fat pancakes so as not to absorb oil

I have had the opportunity to treat myself to a culinary miracle that made the fat from the pancakes run down my hands, so I understand perfectly well that there are lovers of drier crumpets.

Let's start with the fact that the dough itself is not greasy. Vegetable oil is limited and only lubricates the surface of the pan.

Ingredients:

A glass of kefir
1 egg
A pinch of salt
Teaspoon of soda
0.5 cups flour
0.5 tsp vegetable oil

Cooking

Add egg, salt and soda to kefir. Mix thoroughly. Next, gradually add flour and continue mixing. Add half a spoon of vegetable oil to the mixture.
If the dough turns out to be very liquid, add flour with a tablespoon.
Flour can be of different quality (the grade depends on the amount of gluten), so one recipe can give one housewife different results.
Set the fire mode to medium or slightly less than medium.
Just grease the frying pan with oil.
As soon as the first side is browned, close the pan with a lid.
If you have a good Teflon coating, you can do without oil at all. Of course, they will not look as appetizing, but you will get a healthier and less calorie breakfast.
They turn out greasy because we put soda in the dough, it creates a looser structure into which the oil is absorbed, like a sponge.
Also, pancakes mixed with liquid dough will turn out fattier than with thick dough.
Well, some advice for those who cannot do without frying, but want to get a product that is not very fatty: put it out of the frying pan on a paper towel.
By the way, so that they can easily come away from the pan, it is better to add oil to the dough itself, rather than pouring it into a frying container.

Pancakes with meat filling

Lazy cooking includes many recipes, such as pancakes with fillings. This delicacy is a cross between pies and pancakes.

This delicacy can be filled with various additives, it could be plum, cherry, dried apricots or chocolate with bananas. You can even make a closed mini pizza from pancake dough by adding ham, cheese and a little ketchup to the filling. The best recipe for a meat-eater is pancakes stuffed with minced meat, or lazy belyashi.

How to prepare pancakes stuffed with minced meat:

Add a teaspoon of soda to one and a half glasses of warm kefir. Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes.
Mix 2 tbsp. sifted flour with a pinch of salt and 1 tsp. Sahara.
Add the dry ingredients into the kefir in a thin stream. Stir the dough well so that there are no lumps left.
Salt and pepper 200 grams of minced meat and add one very finely chopped onion to it.
Pour pancakes into a frying pan, a tablespoon of dough in each portion, place a small amount of minced meat on top and pour a small amount of dough over it.
Fry the pancakes until cooked on both sides. Be sure to break one of the pancakes in half to make sure the mince is not raw.

These lazy whites can be served with kefir-garlic sauce. To make it, squeeze two or 3 cloves of garlic into a glass of milk and add 0.5-1 tsp. salt.

The main thing is to know when to stop

Many people do not know how to solve the problem if the dough does not rise. What should I do to make the mixture airy? In fact, the process of kneading yeast dough is an art. Not everyone succeeds in making a lush mass the first time. If you don't knead the ingredients enough, the yeast will be distributed unevenly throughout the dough. As a result, the mass will turn out weak and will not rise. However, it is not recommended to be overzealous. This may make the dough tougher. Because of this, the mass will not rise. It is very important to know when to stop. High-quality yeast dough should be elastic and smooth: not soft like shortbread, and not tight like rubber.