Hey guys! So this is my very first recipe post, and I hope it turns out ok. If anything is unclear or you have questions, please feel free to comment below or DM me on Instagram.
Two years ago, for my honeymoon, my husband and I took an amazing four week trip to Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. I was between jobs at the time, which allowed me to take so many days off. It was during the winter and much of our time in Japan was spent in cafes, staying warm and indulging in the most amazing baked goods and snacks. One of my all time favorite snacks were the souffle pancakes at Hoshino Coffee in Shinjuku. They were light, fluffy and delicious. Since then I have not been able to get that taste out of my mind. Over the weekend, when I had a major craving, I decided to do some online research and see if there were copycat recipes available… and SCORE! I found two recipes one from Washoku.guide and Bettiebaker.com and decided to combine them to make some tasty pancakes for my husband and myself.
The outcome was quite nice. I didn’t have a stainless steel mold to make super tall pancakes like at Hoshino Coffee, but the texture and flavors were almost spot on. If you’ve ever tasted a birthday cake made at an Asian bakery, this is pretty much the same but in pancake form. One thing to note, this pancake recipe does not use baking soda or baking powder. Instead, you fold in a meringue which gives the hotcakes their fluffiness.
- 1 cup cake flour (I used Silk brand)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup milk (I used 2%)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 egg yolks
- 3 egg whites
- 1/4 cup sugar
- Vegetable oil
- 1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
- 2 tbs sugar
- Sliced strawberries
- Place your frying pan of choice on your burner turned to low so that your pan will heat evenly while you make your batter.
- In a large bowl mix cake flour, salt, milk, vanilla and egg yolks. Mix all ingredients until they are smooth but make sure not to over mix, so a few lumps are OK. Over mixing causes the gluten to activate which can result in a chewy pancake vs a fluffy one.
- In a second mixing bowl place sugar and egg whites inside. Then with a hand mixer starting on low setting begin mixing. Slowly work your way up to high and continue to mix until you have nice firm peaks. This took me approx. 8 mins.
- Take the meringue and gently fold it into the liquid batter a little at a time. You want to make sure it stays light and airy, so don’t mix it too much. Just until there are no more white streaks.
- Lightly grease your pan. I used vegetable oil and spread it around with a paper towel. If your pan feels like it may have gotten too hot, you can always quickly place the bottom of the pan on a wet towel to cool it off.
- Use a ladle to pour your mix into your pan.
- This part is optional, but I covered my pancake with a lid so that the middle would cook a little quicker and I could add more batter, making my pancakes thicker.
- Once your pancake has browned to your liking, flip.
- I made my whipped cream in the middle of cooking my pancakes, simply mix your 2 tbs of sugar and pint of heavy whipping cream in a bowl with a hand mixer on high. It took me like 3 mins to do this. Set it in the fridge until ready to use.
- With my pancakes complete; I topped them with some lemon custard I had in the fridge, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream.
I hope you found this recipe easy to follow and easy to make! My biggest tip to offer is, if you are a slow cook like me, separate your batter into two containers and put one in the fridge until you are ready to use it. That way the meringue stays stiff and your pancakes will be fluffy. I noticed that mine started flattening out a bit because the eggs were setting. Also, I had to adjust the temperature between med – medium low a few times so that I could get a mostly even brown. I think for my next batch of these I will experiment by using matcha powder. There’s nothing better than fluffy matcha pancakes!
Cheers,
Sonya
