Giant Monster of Pancake Goodness

March 29, 2015 10:39 AM

Making Monster Pancakes in your rice cooker.
posted by storybored (57 comments total)

This will legitimately improve my life.
posted by Lord_Pall at 10:55 AM on March 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

I shudder to think how much maple syrup and butter those monster pancakes would require.

Shudder with anticipation that is.
posted by srboisvert at 10:56 AM on March 29, 2015 [11 favorites]

Oo, I forgot - in addition to the variations listed in the FPP, there is also Monster Green Tea Pancake Variant.. Enjoy eat want pancake now soon health digestion!
posted by storybored at 11:01 AM on March 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

I've been dithering on getting a rice cooker, and this just sealed the deal.
posted by mikelieman at 11:02 AM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

i shoed dis "pancake" 2 mai wayf an shee sed "it looks like a cake cake"
posted by lalochezia at 11:04 AM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

I can see a chocolate pecan cake with incredible icing of some sort, for people who don't want to heat the house baking in the summer, could even "bake" on the patio. Maybe you could whip up the biggeat flan the world has ever seen.
posted by Oyéah at 11:10 AM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

BRB UWAJIMAYA RUN
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:13 AM on March 29, 2015 [7 favorites]

I have died and gone to heaven
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:14 AM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

I tried this once, and it turned out horribly, because I have a cheap North American "on/off" rice cooker. It would not cook all the way through, and got fairly burned on the bottom. IIRC, I did some googling and apparently you need one of the higher end rice cookers with multiple settings (porridge, etc) to actually cook a pancake like this.
posted by Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer at 11:17 AM on March 29, 2015 [13 favorites]

YES.
posted by carter at 11:20 AM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've been dithering on getting a rice cooker, and this just sealed the deal.

Roger Ebert: The Pot and How To Use It. "First, get the Pot. You need the simplest rice cooker made. It comes with two speeds: Cook, and Warm. Not expensive. Now you're all set to cook meals for the rest of your life on two square feet of counter space, plus a chopping block."
posted by effbot at 11:20 AM on March 29, 2015 [10 favorites]

This worked very well in my smart rice cooker, even with Bisquick. We sometimes make it as a fun weekend treat.
posted by debgpi at 11:41 AM on March 29, 2015

So, it takes a smart rice cooker to do this, not the on/off variety, but they're also saying that all you do is set the smart cooker to normal rice setting, not porridge or anything fancy. So why doesn't this work in a regular rice cooker?

And since these do look like cakes-pakes, not pan-cakes, could you do it with any cake mix?
posted by thecjm at 11:58 AM on March 29, 2015

So I've just found that if you type "rice cooker" into youtube, you can pretty much find people making everything in rice cookers.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:01 PM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

thecjm: "And since these do look like cakes-pakes, not pan-cakes, could you do it with any cake mix?"

behold the comments:

Dallin Erickson · Top Commenter · Monticello, Utah
This is absolutely not a pancake, using the batter you would to make a pancake does not grant you the infinite authority to call whatever you create with said batter a pancake. This was not cooked in a pan, therefore it is disqualified from PanCake status. This is at best a very thick disappointing non indented waffle.

Please do not disappoint Dallin Erickson.
posted by boo_radley at 12:01 PM on March 29, 2015 [14 favorites]

that's not a pancake.
posted by pjenks at 12:16 PM on March 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

I agree strongly with the contention that a pancake without a pan is a cake.

But to call it "disappointing" or even "non-indented waffle" means that he has been misled about the item, whereas the item is very plainly and truthfully labeled. He is making too much of a fuss and does not deserve his share of cake.
posted by ardgedee at 12:16 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

My previous experience.
posted by RobotHero at 12:20 PM on March 29, 2015

The simple on/off rice cooker is not merely a North American thing. I have a British model of a National rice cooker from ca. 1970, and it is similar to what was found all over Asia until the 1990s.

The rice cooker is one of those brilliant little devices that take advantage of a simple bit of gradeschool physics: water boils at 100° at sea level. So, when your rice-and-water mixture heats to 101°, that must mean that all the water is gone. The device has a thermometer that simply switches the pot off when it reaches 101°.

There is no need for digital interfaces or "fuzzy logic" circuits here. It's one of the most elegant kitchen appliances ever, and I made a special trip on my Gazelle omafiets last weekend to have the cable repaired at an ancient local electronics shop (it uses a pre-IEC high temperature plug, so I couldn't buy a replacement easily).
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:21 PM on March 29, 2015 [6 favorites]

Seconding that that is just cake.
For real breakfast fun try my "indifferent-faced pancakes" you make them the same as smiley-face pancakes (pour batter, make face with chocolate chips, flip, done) but give them expressions of "meh" instead. For some reason they are extra funny...like "I guess you could eat me. I suppose I am delicious. Or something."
posted by sexyrobot at 12:37 PM on March 29, 2015 [7 favorites]

If you want your brown rice to be fluffy in the old-fashioned sort of rice cooker, you simply pull the one lever you have with this sort of device: the proportion of grains to water. You can go a step further and do a longer cold soak, although I'm never sure how much of what I hear about that is just Japanese kitchen lore.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:43 PM on March 29, 2015

Give me Zojirushi or give me death.
posted by phaedon at 12:51 PM on March 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

"And since these do look like cakes-pakes, not pan-cakes, could you do it with any cake mix?"

Funny you should mention that...one of the first great marketing blunders made in japan by an American company:

Apparently, the results were good and tested well in focus groups. It took them quite some time to finally "hear" what the problem was in the comments.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:09 PM on March 29, 2015 [8 favorites]

The rice cooker is one of those brilliant little devices that take advantage of a simple bit of gradeschool physics: water boils at 100° at sea level.

There's a second bit of simple physics involved. Metallic magnetism is heat dependent. There is a magnet at the bottom that hangs suspended under a piece of metal contacting the bottom of the pot. The temperature rises, the attractive pull lessens, and the weight of the magnet is calibrated to drop off just at the 101° point. Hence the clicking sound you might hear when the rice is done.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:12 PM on March 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

Heh, the one time I tried making brown rice in the fancy-ass cooker, ...

The fancy Japanese rice cooker I have has 7 settings covering the white to brown rice spectrum. Apparently, in Japan the hulling, or whatever makes brown rice into white rice, is done by degrees and sold as intermediary products. It's made me really want to find some rice that is maybe a 2, just a bit in the brown direction.

It would be good for restaurants that have a white rice or brown rice option, because then they would only need to stock one kind of rice for both.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:23 PM on March 29, 2015

Has anyone tried this in a VitaClay rice cooker?

I really would like to try it, but the weirdness of the clay + flour scares me.
posted by geryon at 1:33 PM on March 29, 2015

So many things in my life are disappointing non indented waffles that I find it's kind of soul crushing.
posted by srboisvert at 1:38 PM on March 29, 2015 [6 favorites]

Apparently, in Japan the hulling, or whatever makes brown rice into white rice, is done by degrees and sold as intermediary products. It's made me really want to find some rice that is maybe a 2, just a bit in the brown direction.

We have this in Hawaii. Our Costco sells "Hawaiian style" rice that is somewhere between brown and white rice. It's great. We also have "hapa" rice - a mix of brown and white rice grains - also very tasty.
posted by entropyiswinning at 2:10 PM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

Funny you should mention that...one of the first great marketing blunders made in japan by an American company:

http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/charm/CHARM%20proceedings/CHARM%20article%20archive%20pdf%20format/Volume%207%201995/175%20knight.pdf

Apparently, the results were good and tested well in focus groups. It took them quite some time to finally "hear" what the problem was in the comments.

Where'd the rest of that paper it looked really interesting.
posted by Carillon at 2:23 PM on March 29, 2015

This is perfect, since the best part of a pancake is the starchy, gummy center instead of the delicious crispy griddled browning that occurs on the outside SAID NOBODY EVER
posted by threeants at 2:23 PM on March 29, 2015 [25 favorites]

Guys, half the fun of pancakes is flipping that bad boy. Oh, yeah! So brown! So toasty! Get me some syrup, stat!
posted by SPrintF at 2:23 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

That's not a pancake, it's a poorly implemented Yorkshire pudding.
posted by Leon at 2:35 PM on March 29, 2015 [6 favorites]

Where'd the rest of that paper it looked really interesting.

I originally read about it in a book entitled From Bonsai to Levis: When West Meets East; An Insider's Surprising Account of How the Japanese Live by George Fields. You can also find a discussion of it in A Short Course in International Marketing Blunders: Mistakes Made by Companies That Should Have Known Better by Michael White. It's in google books. Page 121.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:06 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

This takes how long? The normal way, once you've mixed your batter, you're like 5 minutes away from eating a pancake. In the 45 minutes this takes, I could feed the entire house and have pancakes left over for lunchtime pancake pb&J sammiches.
posted by billyfleetwood at 3:08 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

those are cakes.
posted by Makwa at 3:34 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

That paper ICNH linked to is interesting. Betty Crocker should try marketing their rice cooker cake mix in Japan again because nowadays cooking things other than rice in a rice cooker is definitely a thing here. There are settings on mine (bought last year, I think) specifically for that purpose. But then again, regular pancake mixes work well so maybe there's no market after all...
posted by misozaki at 3:40 PM on March 29, 2015

Reminds me of this somethingawful thread about microwave cake. Unfortunately most of the image links are dead, but there are still some good ones.
posted by Joe Chip at 4:17 PM on March 29, 2015

Also, do you think this would work in a slow cooker? I'm stuck for dinner ideas.
posted by Joe Chip at 4:23 PM on March 29, 2015

Buy a waffle-iron folks. Same amount of dishes -- miles better result.
posted by smidgen at 4:27 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

I've done this. It lacks the brown, crunchy, fried, oily bits that make a pancake a pancake.
posted by sourwookie at 4:49 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have a Zojirushi fuzzy-logic rice cooker. I love my Zojirushi fuzzy-logic rice cooker. I cook many things in my rice cooker that are not plain rice and recommend The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook regularly (the mixed-rice recipe in that book is the bomb-diggety, y'all).

These things are NOT PANCAKES and SHOULD NOT BE CALLED PANCAKES. Pancakes are a THING in themselves and should NOT be glomphed into this horrible… ersazt-coffeecake… THING.

No. Wrong. Should not exist under the name "pancakes".
posted by Lexica at 5:51 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

I want to plunge my fist into that.
posted by oceanjesse at 6:43 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is perfect, since the best part of a pancake is the starchy, gummy center instead of the delicious crispy griddled browning that occurs on the outside SAID NOBODY EVER

No kidding. The thought of this makes me a bit queasy, but just like raw cookie dough this sounds like something where my not liking it leaves more for everyone else.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:29 PM on March 29, 2015

This is perfect, since the best part of a pancake is the starchy, gummy center instead of the delicious crispy griddled browning that occurs on the outside SAID NOBODY EVER

....that depends. I once, while on vacation, had something called "chocolate brownie batter pancakes" at a cafe. They were big thick pancakes, made by pouring a big ladle of pancake batter into the pan, but then right away drizzling a big spoonful of brownie batter into the pool of pancake batter. Whether it was because of that crucial few seconds, or whether it was because brownie batter cooks at a slightly higher temperature, the brownie batter was still just slightly gooey, and I did not have a problem with that
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:20 PM on March 29, 2015 [6 favorites]

Brownie batter is qualitatively different.

Everybody who's ever licked the mixing bowl after a batch of brownies, raise your left hand. Everybody who's ever licked the mixing bowl after a batch of pancakes, raise your right hand.

*peers through screen like Miss What's-Her-Name from Romper Room* Looks like a bunch of southpaws to me…
posted by Lexica at 9:45 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ambidextrous here, but I have a near-compulsion to eat raw batters and doughs. Used to drive my mother to distraction as a kid.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:21 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I tried this the last time I saw it online. My very basic rice cooker did a decent job, but I was underwhelmed to say the least.
posted by ericales at 10:40 PM on March 29, 2015

Waffles are infinitely superior to pancakes:

(a) More golden surface.

(b) Butter & syrup pockets.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:07 PM on March 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

I gave it a shot in a basic rice cooker. It went straight into the bin.
posted by Wolof at 3:31 AM on March 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

This looks like the pancake equivalent of a Reese's King Size Peanut Butter Cup. Great in theory (bigger is better!) but likely to have unsatisfying ratios in practice.
posted by grumpybear69 at 5:50 AM on March 30, 2015

We do a skillet pancake which also includes making a nice fruit and butter and sugar caramel that you pour batter over and bake in the oven.
posted by clvrmnky at 6:05 AM on March 30, 2015

Yeah, looks interesting, but I'll stick with waffles. Last year I splurged on a waffle maker. This one. Best thing is it beeps when it's done, so I can sit back at the compy and just wait for the beep. Oh! And I also tried Carbon's waffle mix - it's great. Here's a link to one flavor. I like this one and the pumpkin spice, but the chocolate chip isn't worth the extra cash. Just add chips to the regular one :)
posted by Ambient Echo at 7:22 AM on March 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

if y'all'd like to step up your pancake game, Julia Child's Clafloutis recipe is easy, delicious, and produces, from pancake batter, a custard-filled tart with fruit.

It's magic.
posted by zippy at 8:49 AM on March 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

Thirding, that's not a pancake! Any aficionado knows the best pancakes are the thinnest. A stack has many surfaces. What's being cooked in the rice cooker here is a form of bannock.
And yes, of course waffles are better, we all know that -- however, bringing them into this discussion is a derail.
posted by Rash at 10:45 AM on March 30, 2015

Heh, the one time I tried making brown rice in the fancy-ass cooker, it gave me an estimate of something like 3.5 hours.

I have a Sanyo fuzzy-logic rice cooker that definitely takes at least 90 minutes to cook brown rice which is obviously much slower than either cooking it on the stove or in a non-fancy rice cooker.

That said, any rice cooker that takes that long to cook rice almost certainly comes with a timer and pre-soak functions, so the key to having perfect brown rice with this kind of cooker is to put the rice and water in in the morning and set it to be done in the evening. There is something lovely about coming home from work, opening your front door and smelling fresh rice, especially if you've cooked something like jasmine.

It definitely takes a bit more forethought, but as someone who eats rice on average twice a day 5x a week, who is therefore picky about it (and who has a strong preference for white but is trying to switch to brown for health reasons) it's definitely worth it for me.
posted by andrewesque at 1:22 PM on March 30, 2015

Any aficionado knows the best pancakes are the thinnest.

Also known as a crepe.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:35 PM on March 30, 2015

Oh come now! Beignets fried in bacon fat are what you want. Trust me.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 9:02 PM on March 30, 2015 [1 favorite]