Here are some common mistakes that can be made when making pancakes and how to avoid them.

Not measuring the ingredients correctly

Measuring ingredients correctly is important for any recipe.  You can’t just throw a handful of this and a pinch of that and expect them to come out right.  Measure all your ingredients with the correct measuring cups and make sure you level the dry ingredients and correctly measure the wet ingredients.

If you accidentally put 1 teaspoon extra of flour, there probably won’t be a difference, but if you put and 1 extra teaspoon of salt, you will taste it!

Overbeating

Overbeating pancakes makes them tough.  Check out more about avoiding overbeating.

Not cooking long enough

If you flip the pancakes too soon, not only will they look funny, but they may get doughy inside.  If you flipped too soon, you might want to cook it on the first side again for a little longer, just in case.

Make sure you wait until many bubbles have formed before you flip them.  This will ensure that they are cooked enough.

Cooking too long

The other extreme is that you burn them.  If you have too much butter or oil in the pan, they can burn easily.  Keep an eye on them because they cook fast.  They will usually be read to flip in 1 to 3 minutes, depending on how big they are. 

You don’t have to wait until the pancake is completely covered with bubbles for every inch.  There only needs to be several bubble uniformly throughout.  Also, the edges will start to pull away from the pan. 

When you see them smoking, it’s probably too late.  The time you flip is critical.

Making bad substitutions

Some ingredients can be substituted if you don’t have them, but it will only work if you know what you’re doing.  Don’t substitute baking soda if it calls for baking powder.  Don’t substitute milk for eggs.  If you don’t have butter or vegetable oil, you can use melted shortening most of the time. 

These are some basic and frequent pancake mistakes that if you avoid, you should be able to make some great pancakes.

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