Here's the (Unexpected!) Secret to Extra-Fluffy Pancakes You Have to Try to Believe (2024)

Pancakes are a breakfast food that can be either divine or terribly disappointing—and it usually depends on how fluffy they are. Much has been written about how to ensure fluffiness, from minimal stirring to stiffly whipping egg whites to using seltzer and more, but recently we came across a tip that stood out among all the others for its simplicity and ease of execution, as well as its rave reviews.

The tip, via Food52, relies on relaxed egg whites, aka unbeaten whites that have been allowed to sit for a bit. The pancake technique calls for the eggs to be separated and for the yolks to be mixed into a buttermilk, milk, and melted butter mixture. After the wet and dry ingredients have been blended, the unbeaten whites are stirred in. The batter is then left to sit for five minutes before cooking to let the whites relax.

Dana Velden, who's been making this recipe for years, tells Kristen Migliore of Food52, "My theory is that the original maker of this recipe was supposed to beat the egg white but either forgot or decided to skip the step. And, to be honest, laziness was the reason I thought I would try it, too. I was more than willing to not beat egg whites at 7 a.m." (We agree with you, Dana.)

Why Separating and Resting Egg Whites Makes Fluffy Pancakes

Egg whites are what is known as a mechanical leavener, not a chemical one, like baking powder or baking soda. It is good to have a combination of the two, since too much chemical leavener can overpower the flavor, and mechanical leavener might not be able to do it solo.

In this particular case, not beating egg whites allows them to maintain more of their structure for longer. It provides the pancake batter with greater support that does not collapse as quickly as if the whites had been beaten to stiff peaks beforehand. You know how the batter can start out fluffy but end up flat by the time you're cooking the last few hotcakes? That is what we would like to avoid.

Food52 cites baking expert Rose Levy Berenbaum: "Adding the white at the end gives more support. This is a technique used in soufflés—adding a little of the white unwhipped at the end so that the soufflé doesn't deflate as quickly. Whipping egg whites to soft or stiff peaks adds more air but also as the egg white cells enlarge, the membrane gets thinner and thinner and is more fragile."

Putting Relaxed Egg Whites to the Test

I had to try it, of course. So I made a batch of pancakes and stirred in two egg whites at the end. I cooked three pancakes immediately, without waiting any time at all, and then I cooked the rest to see if there was any difference after letting the egg whites sit for a while.

There was a difference between pancakes cooked immediately and pancakes cooked after five minutes of rest time. The relaxation period seemed to help, as you can see in the photo above.

But an even bigger difference was how the batter maintained its fluffiness throughout the lengthy cooking period. It takes a while to fry up 21 pancakes (three per pan, seven rounds, and approximately five minutes per round, which is 35 plus minutes of cooking alone, not counting transition times). And yet, by the end, the pancakes were coming out just as light and fluffy as the first few. So, that impressed me more than anything, and I am inclined to continue using this technique for that reason alone.