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Need help with Pancake Batter recipe...PLEASE!

steevo124's picture
steevo124

Need help with Pancake Batter recipe...PLEASE!

Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this but......

I need help from you experienced professional bakers/cooks. I am trying to duplicate my
favorite dry pancake mix using the exact ingredients. I'm trying to crack the recipe. I know all natural ingredients and a home recipe would be healthier and maybe even tastier but thats not the point. Please only provide advice related to my question...  Thanks!

The dry mix contains the following ingredients in order (by weight): Enriched Flour (Wheat flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate,Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Cultured Non-Fat Milk, Buttermilk, Salt, Soybean Oil, Dicalcium Phosphate, Cellulose Gum, Ascorbic Acid, Soy flour, Egg.

I have all these ingredients but things don't add up. Here are my questions.

1). Does it appear they are using "cake flour" since there is no "malted barley" flour?

2) How could leavening agents be so high on the list by weight? Most home recipes call for very little baking soda/leavening agents? If I were to reduce all ingredients after the baking soda, the rest of my ingredients wold be so little.

3). Why is there cultured non-fat milk & buttermilk in the ingredients. I thought these were the same.

4). I read that cellulose gum should be used at .25%-.75% of weight of flower which leaves me about 1/2 gram gum per 130g (1 cup) of flour. How could there be so little soy oil, soy flour and egg if the ingredients weigh even less than the gum?

Finally, the bag of mix I'm trying to replicate is a 45lb bag so I know everything is relative to that, but math is math and I should be able to reduce all these ingredients down to a home recipe right? Why does a somewhat simple pancake recipe not make sense?

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

the ingredients are listed in order by weight?  

If the flour already contained leavening (a pre-mix) then the amount could be less than the following ingredient.  Same goes for any other suspicious weights.  

steevo124's picture
steevo124

I have the bag of dry mix with the ingredients listed on the bag.  Isn't it FDA regulations that all ingredients have to be listed in order of predominance by weight? If so, I just assumed that they are following FDA guidelines. Not sure if they are using a self rising flour already containing leavening or not, but even if they are, the leavening would still have to be on the package in order by weight no?  Look at the ingredients in a self rising flour. I believe the ingredients are listed by weight. 

flux's picture
flux

If they did use a self rising flour, wouldn't the manufacturer have to include all the ingredients that make up self rising flour in brackets after the name of the ingredient?

I always thought buttermilk was the by-product from making butter from whole milk. With cultured milk, bacteria is added and then allowed to ferment.

 

steevo124's picture
steevo124

Exactly, I would think they would have to list all the ingredients of the self rising flower as well. 

I guess they are using cultured non-fat milk AND pure buttermilk but these all have to be in powdered dry forms. 

Finally, I should mention this is not a retail box of dry mix (e.g. Aunt Jemima, Hungry Jack etc). This is the mix for a very popular nationally recognized pancake house so I'm not sure if the same regulations apply since the product is made exclusively for the restaurants and not for sale to the public.