Macrolog
Flippin’ Pancakes
Today is Margi Gras, or for us less festive types, Pancake Tuesday. And I, in my infinite wisdom, saw no harm in volunteering to be the house pancake maker.
Big mistake.
Everything was fine at first; I weighed and sifted the special pancake mix flour stuff, added an egg and beat it in whilst adding the water without incident, and less than three minutes after I began I had a bowl of fresh pancake batter, ready for the pan.
My first attempt to make one actually went well. I used some extra-virgin olive oil to give the flat pan a thin coating, then left it on the hob to heat ‘til it sizzled, as per the instructions on the flour packet. I tested the heat with a small sprinkle of tap water from my fingers, and I was ready to go.
Taking the pan off the heat for a moment, I ladled in enough batter to cover its surface, and returned it to the hob to get cooking. I had to use a plastic fish slice to prise up the edges once the liquid had begun to solidify, which was a bit awkward. (In these parts, apparently, there’s no such thing as a plastic palette knife.) Less than a minute was enough, and I managed to turn it over and cook the top side without tearing it into pieces. No flipping for me—I’m not one to tempt fate when it comes to the kitchen.
So the first pancake was a success. (I say pancake, but when us folks say ‘pancake’ we really mean ‘thick crêpe’, I suppose. I ate mine with some chocolate fudge cake from the fridge.) All successive attempts, however, were a different matter.
I tried to cook another straight after the first, but the pan was too hot. I tried to coat the surface with oil again, but it merely bounced around the pan in a big rolling glob. I didn’t want to spread it around manually, because that’s how people end up in the burns unit. So I took my chances, ladled in some more batter and rested the pan on the hob. But this time, for some reason, the middle cooked far quicker than the edges; by the time the pancake was ready to be turned, the centre has burned and was sticking to the pan. Abort mission.
I returned a while later, determined to rectify my mistakes and repeat my initial performance. Followed instructions to the letter. But the same thing happened again. Two pancakes wasted. Getting flustered now, I set the hob at a lower heat and tried a smaller pan, to make what North Americans would recognise as a pancake. This was better, it cooked evenly like my first. But the bloody fish slice was too feckin’ big for the small pan, and the resulting mess looked more like a fajita than a pancake.
Fuckedy fucking FUCK!, I screamed in my head.
At that point, I threw my hands up and stormed out of the kitchen, vowing to stick to burgers, pasta and toast—the simple stuff—from now on.
Tue 04 Mar 2003 at 18:51 ·
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This is the personal website of MacDara Conroy, a twenty-something journalist, editor and all-round creative type living in Dublin, Ireland.
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You are reading Flippin’ Pancakes, a Macrolog entry by MacDara Conroy. It is filed under Journal, and was published in March 2003.
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