Pancakes.
A staple breakfast food, but often overlooked. Rather than being the star of its own story, pancakes are more of a canvas for add-ins and toppings. However, to me, there’s one exception — the maple honey butter pancakes from Golden Diner in New York City.
Chef Sam Yoo, the owner of Golden Diner, implemented one key difference to set his pancakes above the rest. While normal pancakes are made with baking powder or baking soda to force the batter to rise quickly by making air pockets, Yoo used yeast.
By making the batter yeast-based, it would rise slower and have a fluffier, cake-like texture, making the pancakes unbelievably airy. Seeing videos online of people lined around the block, waiting to try what I otherwise disregarded as a mid-tier food, I decided to recreate Yoo’s iconic viral pancakes at home with my friend, using the NYT recipe, with an added berry compote.
It started simple, a maple honey butter and maple honey butter syrup, both having pretty much identical proportions of maple syrup to honey, with the only difference being the amount of salt and butter I added to each and the way they were made.
The maple honey butter was made by creaming slightly softened butter, maple syrup, honey and salt, which brought out the sweetness of the syrup and honey. After mixing them, I placed the mixture in the fridge so it would develop a thicker texture to make it easier to plate.
The maple honey butter syrup, on the other hand, was made by melting together the ingredients and whisking until they formed a light and thin syrup.
The batter was the true test. Since it used yeast instead of the faster baking soda or baking powder alternative, it would take time for the yeast to develop and for the batter to rise.
The ingredients themselves were typical, consisting of active dry yeast, flour, buttermilk, sugar, baking soda, salt, eggs and oil.
To speed up the yeast development, I made a makeshift proofing box in the oven for a warm environment that would let the batter rise faster.
While waiting for the batter to rise, I started on the mixed berry compote. I mixed together blackberries, chopped strawberries, a few slices of orange, zest and sugar over a flame on medium heat. As the sugar melted and the berries’ juices were extracted, I was left with a thin syrup with whole berries.
After around an hour, I was ready to make the pancakes themselves. I first poured the batter into a smaller, 8-inch pan to ensure the pancakes were even and pillowy rather than thin.
When both sides were brown and had some color, I transferred them into the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for around two minutes to finish cooking.
With all the components ready, I began plating. I first stacked the pancakes, centering them so the syrup would flow correctly. Next, I poured the maple honey butter syrup on top, followed by a quenelle of our maple honey butter. I placed some freshly-sliced strawberries and doused it in our berry compote.
It was complete.
When I cut into the pancakes, the texture was nearly identical to an airy cake, having a heavier texture and a richer taste compared to the average breakfast pancake.
The maple honey butter melted into the pancakes gradually, seeping through layer by layer til every bite of the pancakes was soaked through. The syrup enhanced this, being liquidy enough to seep over the edges but just viscous enough to cling to the dough.
The syrup was biblical, being just sweet enough to be noticed, but not so much as to overpower the fruitiness and smaller notes of the various ingredients. The mixed berry compote added a bright tartiness to the dish, cutting through the rich butter and syrup by adding a fresh accent, tying the dish together.
While the dish itself took far longer than your average pancakes, I think the sheer difference in taste and texture make up for that, especially when comparing the wait time in New York to the cooking time at home. This dish took a little under three hours to prepare whilst being relatively inexpensive, with most of the cost coming from the fresh fruit.
The price, time commitment and simplicity warrant at least an attempt at recreating this recipe.
