How To Tell When Pancake Batter Is Over Or Under-Mixed

Undermixed pancake batter is breakfast faux pas 101 with the only thing worse than undermixing being overmixing. When making your go-to pancake recipe, you simply cannot do either if you want happy eaters. Pancakes are a breakfast and brunch staple. In fact, when it comes to these flat cakes cooked on a griddle, Maine's blueberry pancakes rank second among America's favorite signature breakfasts, according to a survey conducted by Meal Finds. Perhaps, their popularity can be linked to the variety of flavors you can create or that it takes just a few simple household staples like flour, eggs, and milk to mix up a batch. Whatever the reason, pancake batter preparation is key to how delicious your pancakes will be.

While it is difficult to undermix pancake batter, sometimes you may see little patches of flour that have not been blended into the mix or the color of the mix is off. It's not the end of the world and an easy fix with a couple of turns of the spoon. However, if you fall into the trap of overmixing your pancake batter, which can happen to anyone who has ever spent too much time trying to meticulously rid the batter of all those lumps, you may end up with an excess of gluten that transforms what would be fluffy and delicious pancakes into hot cakes that are tough, chewy, and flat. How can you tell if you have overmixed your pancake batter?

When a pancake batter has been overmixed, there are several visual clues. Perfectly mixed pancake batter will have a few lumps; However, if you have overmixed, you will notice either a soupy-looking batter that is loose or a thick batter that looks more like a biscuit mix. Either scenario means your pancakes are not going to cook properly which is really why we care about this mishap. 

Ultimately, the proof is in the end product, and when you overmix your pancake batter, you will end up with flat hot cakes that are rubbery in texture and not worthy of your melted butter and hot maple syrup. How much mixing is too much? It can take as little as 10 strokes to adequately mix your pancake mix.

That said, once you've done all your mixing, it's important to let the pancake batter rest before ladling it into a frying pan. This will yield the desired fluffy and lighter-than-air pancake your mouth desires because the flour will be able to soak up more of that moisture from the liquid ingredients. Remember these batter cues and your pancakes will fly off the table.