Carla Makes a Giant Blueberry Pancake

I tried flipping the pancake in the pan.

Didn't work, it was too delicate,

and there was like all kinds of problems

and I truly thought that defeat was upon me,

and I said to my colleague, Sarah Jampel,

I said, Sarah, I don't think it's gonna happen,

if this next one doesn't work, we might

have to talk about going back to just using

the batter in individual pancakes,

which there's nothing wrong with that

but I really had this dream of this giant pancake,

and Sarah said, What about putting it in the oven?

And I was like, an oven pancake?

She said, I've never heard anybody say those words before,

and I was like, Sarah, you're a goddamn genius.

[William Tell Overture]

Okay, the first thing that I've done

is mix together all-purpose flour and, um, cornmeal.

If you were using more finely ground cornmeal

keep all of the measurements the same,

it will totally work exactly as written,

you just won't get the little bits of cornmeal

which I like, so look for stone ground cornmeal,

you should be able to find it in any supermarket.

This recipe, I played around a lot with

the leaveners and I ended up with an entire tablespoon

of baking powder and then just a little bit

of baking soda, half of a teaspoon.

The other thing that I'm doing that looks weird

and seems weird is instead of adding my dry ingredients

to my flour mixture, I'm adding the dry ingredients,

that was sugar and this is salt, also,

a healthy amount of salt, but you need it,

directly into the eggs and then whisking

that together first.

Another part of the inspiration,

and something that I'm doing a little bit differently,

starting with the wet ingredients and then adding

the dry, which reminded me of Clair Saffitz'

Reverse Creaming Cake Technique,

which I actually don't know if this is

truly connected to, but it was in my head,

so I did it, and it came out great,

so that's that.

You have your eggs, sugar, salt, baking powder,

baking soda, and I'm just whisking it until

everything is completely dissolved and the eggs

are a little bit lighter and they look

a little bit shiny.

Next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do...

This is similar, you've probably done this

in cake batters as well, adding half of your dry

ingredients and half of your wet ingredients

and combining that, and then adding in

a half and the half again.

Again, I don't actually know why I'm doing it,

I just know that I did it this way

from the very beginning and it came out great

so why mess it up, you know what I mean?

I would not say that in the end I'm making a caky pancake,

because actually the pancake is very light

and very floofy, it's got a great texture.

I think that the leavener is really important in this

because of the cornmeal, it doesn't dissolve

the way that flour will dissolve.

It retains its integrity and it absorbs

that liquid and the little beads of the cornmeal

kind of plump up so they're heavy,

so the leavener is really there to make sure

that the pancake itself doesn't feel wet

or gummy or leaden.

So this is the other half, and on this addition

I'm also gonna pour in two tablespoons of melted butter,

and I wanna mix it just until it's combined

but a few lumps are okay, you don't wanna over-whip

pancake batter 'cause it will get a little bit tough,

so this makes a more tender, lighter pancake,

to just have it combine, and that's really all...

It takes.

Okay, and then now, obviously, we need the blueberries.

It's a cup of blueberries, I tried it

with a cup and a half, it became all wet

in the middle and it wasn't nice.

Switching to a spoon because if I tried

to whisk this all the blueberries would get stuck

in the metal parts, you know?

So that wouldn't work.

So that's it, batter's done.

You can tell already it's very active.

Baking powder kind of leavens on its own

as soon as it's combined with a wet thing,

and that is very much happening here,

there is a lot of bubbles, there's a lot of action, Jackson.

[dramatic thunder cracks]

So you know it's gonna be even lighter

and I don't want to wait too long

so that all of this initial...

Air dissipates.

Goin' over to the stove.

I'm starting by combining butter and a little bit of oil.

The reason why I'm combining butter and oil

is because the oil is there to raise

the smoke point of the fat mixture.

If it's just butter, for the amount of time

that this has to sit on top of the stove

before going into the oven, and then being in the oven,

the butter would burn.

Having the oil there gives me the best

of both worlds, I'm getting all the flavor

of the butter and the browning properties

of the butter, like, I do want that,

and I wanna wait just until some of this foaming

subsides but not too much, and that's just a sign

that the fat mixture is hot.

I'm over medium-high.

And now I'm gonna add the batter.

You can just pour it all, you don't have to move

the batter around the pan, just pour it

into the middle of the pan and it will get to the sides.

So at this stage this really reminds me, a lot,

of making a frittata, and in fact it looks

kind of frittata-ish, it's starting to bubble up

around the edges.

If I were making a frittata, though,

I would be stirring vigorously this whole time

to make sure that the egg mixture

was pretty uniform.

I don't wanna do that here, all I'm tryna do

in this first stage is to make sure

that the edge is totally set, that the pancake

is starting to brown underneath,

and I'm looking for a lot of bubbles

to appear on the surface and actually break.

So you can see, that bubbling is actually

the fat that we added to the pan,

and not the batter itself.

We're really just getting browning on the one side

that's in the bottom side of the pan right now,

and the heating up of the pan is happening

on the stove top before it goes in.

The other thing that's happening

is it's looking a little bit more puffed.

I can see that the edge is pretty set,

this whole perimeter, and there's bubbles

all across the surface and a lot of them

in the middle are starting to pop,

which means that the batter is, not only on the edges

is it hot, but through the center too,

starting to create larger and larger air bubbles

that are rising to the surface.

I'm gonna put it in the oven.

[dramatic classical music]

Oh, it looks perfect!

It's puffed, it's set, it's bright yellow

from all that cornmeal, it's still bubbling

around the sides.

It's puffy, but it's not uncooked batter on top,

but it's really tender, tenderoni.

It's flip-out-able, but it's also cooked through,

and we had to be okay with the fact

that this side doesn't see action,

as far as being in contact with the pan.

Very different from an ordinary pancake.

So, the reason why I like this,

and I was attached to the idea of making

one big one instead of using the batter

and going back into individual pancakes,

'cause this is great for brunch.

When you have a bunch of people over,

or even just a family of four

and you can't possibly get all the pancakes

to come out at the same time, and then you keep

'em warm in the oven, but those oven-warmed ones

are never the same.

All right, so now we have to do the flip.

See, just flop it out.

And then you've got little blueberries,

and it's really giant, and it's just got

the most incredible color, and you can see

the little flecks of the cornmeal,

and it's totally cooked through,

and you already forgot that the other side

hadn't been browned, right?

You see this, and you forget everything.

So, the right amount of servings

that we arbitrarily decided for this is six.

It is, you know, tall, you're getting like...

We put the cake back into pancake, you know what I mean?

You kind of get a wedge of pan-cake.

It's just all in the pronunciation.

Cuts like a dream, crispy on the edge.

It's about right, I think.

Ooh la la.

I just have a feeling if I cut another wedge

I might get a friend, you know what I mean?

We all need a friend.

[laughing]

Everybody needs a friend.

So one of the things I learned

from one of my friends is that these toast

very beautifully day after, or perhaps even two days after,

so if you don't have the wherewithal

to get through six wedges of your pancake

on the day that it's made, you can cut it in wedges

and put it in your toaster or your toaster oven,

and apparently it's glorious.

I haven't had it myself because every time

I made it here, they disappeared.

Would anybody care to join me for some pancake?

[excited gasp]

Let's go, Ry.

Ry had her hand up first.

First up, best dressed.

Oh wow, a whole party.

[laughing]

Have you not had giant jam pancake?

No, I'm really excited. I haven't tried it yet.

Okay, do you like butter and syrup?

Sure. Great.

That one's already buttered and syrup-ed.

Can I use this? Yep, of course.

Do you like butter and syrup?

Love butter.

Would you like to self-butter?

Sure. Ew.

[laughing]

Jesus Christ.

This one will just be mine.

Do you guys like it?

Oh yeah. Yes!

[Carly] For real?

Wait, I'm having a sleepover party

with my girlfriends on Friday, so I'm gonna make--

Perfect. This in the morning!

Perfect scenario!

Can you give me the recipe?

I think you could use, also, blackberries,

raspberries, strawberries if you cut it

into pieces. No chocolate chips,

according to you.

Never. Why?

It's just, like, so sweet.

It is, it is so sweet.

But somehow the blueberries aren't.

Are you gonna bring it to a friend?

No, I'm gonna eat it myself.

Oh good.

Wait no, that's so big, Carly, no no no.

Okay, okay!

Oh my god!

That's like-- I'm not sharing.

My grandma used to say, Just as much

as you can fit on the end of my knife.

That's how she would say, for dessert.

Really?

Just as much as you could f... [laughing]

We were like, you're getting a piece.

Really glad you like it!

I love it!

Syrup? Yes, please!

This is perfect, that's great.

Thank you!

It's like Sunday.

Everyday is Sunday around here.

I hope you guys enjoyed giant blueberry pancake,

or big ole blueberry pancake, or blueberry

oven pancake, we're gonna just get a little

trademark, registered, certified on that one.

But really, yeah, one of my favorite recipes

I've worked on in a long time.

Enjoy.

Like most of my great ideas, the idea for this pancake

came about during a really nice,

long, hot shower one evening at home,

and this pancake was born from the creative juices

that floweth, like the hot water,

upon my weary bones.