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A few weeks ago I was researching the KitchenAid stand mixer and I came across a blog post by someone that I thought was not the best advice. The blog post was all about making pancakes with your mixer (or any stand mixer really). Now the recipe was probably pretty good but the process is what was flawed in my opinion.

For me pancakes are all about being soft and light and fluffy. They should not be dense or chewy or gummy in any way. If I wanted that, I could make a trip to one of those all night breakfast joints and get a stack of hockey puck flap jacks.

No, for me pancakes need to be handled with care and attention. The reason is gluten. Now for a bit of food science. Gluten is a protein, actually it is a composition of 2 proteins named gliadin and glutenin. When water is added to wheat flour and then mechanically mixed, gluten forms. And it is this wonderful gluten that gives bread dough and pasta their chewy and elastic characteristics. But since the gluten content is increased by mechanical mixing or kneading, it is not something we ever want to do if we desire to have light and fluffy pancakes.

So, the next time you want to enjoy some pan fried goodness for breakfast, leave your mixer tucked neatly away. Instead, follow this basic cooking process.

You can use any basic pancake recipe that you like. The key to a great result is in the mixing. What you want to do is mix all the dry ingredients first in a bowl that is large enough for your batter. Next, mix all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

Now, before you add the wet to the dry, get prepared. An electric griddle is probably the best appliance for cooking pancakes at home but if you have to use a frying pan, that will also work. There are 2 differences. An electric griddle has a built-in thermostat which means the heat will remain more constant than with a pan on the stove. Second, the griddle means you can cook a lot more pancakes at the same time. I use a pan on the stove myself but I never cook more than one pancake at a time and I keep them warm in the oven till ready to serve. It's not the best but I have no more room to store a griddle so I chose not to buy one. Using my stove, I heat the pan for 2 minutes at level 5. Then I turn down the heat to 4 when cooking. If I notice that things are taking too long, I increase the heat for about another minute and then lower to 4 again.

Now that you have a hot cooking appliance ready, it is time to mix the batter. You want to achieve the mixing as fast as possible without activating too much gluten. So, take the wet ingredients and literally dump them into the dry. Then take a spatula and fold in the wet ingredients for 10 to 15 seconds. That is it. Some of the dry may not be perfectly mixed but that is all right. I have never had a lumpy pancake using this method.

Next, place some batter on the griddle or in the frying pan and wait. You want to see the bubbles forming all around the outside of the pancake. That is the sign of a flapjack that is ready to be flipped. If the heat is high enough the bottom will be nice and brown. If it is too low it will be pale in color and conversely if it is too hot the bottom will be very dark. So as gently as possible flip the flapjack and continue cooking the opposite side. Normally the second side will cook in half the time as the first.

When serving the pancake always have real maple syrup on hand. It can make all the difference in the world and the taste is like no other. Since you put all this care and attention into making the best pancakes you could, you deserve to have them sweetened perfectly with a little maple syrup.

There you have it. Next time you get a craving for some flapjacks, keep the KitchenAid mixer covered and instead use the dump and fold method for the lightest and fluffiest pancakes you can make at home.

Marcy Givens is a cooking and baking enthusiast. She never had much luck when it came to baking at home so she decided to get educated by watching shows and reading books about cooking. She has discovered some useful tips and secrets for selecting the proper Kitchen Aid stand mixer which she freely shares with her readers.

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GE 52175 Fluorescent 10-1/2-Inch Closet Light - Battery Opreated with Pull String

Taking good care of our bodies is something that many of us do without giving it a second thought. We may eat properly, go to the gym, play squash, swim or take part in any other kind of exercise that is good for us. Eating correctly doe not really throw that many problems up at us, there may be the odd thing here and there that may not agree with us but on the whole eating well and healthily is a good starting point on the road to be fit and in good condition. The body however is a complicated piece of machinery and although it needs both fuel from food and exercise to stay healthy there is a very fine balance between too much of either aspect of this.

We need to exercise to strengthen and develop our muscle group as well as to keep our vital organs strong and healthy, such as our heart and lungs, but too much exercise can be harmful to the body if not understood correctly and approached in the correct manner. Each sport that we participate in uses some kind of muscle strength to complete tasks, whether it be golf, soccer, swimming or cycling, all require a certain amount of muscle strength but each sport uses different muscles and uses them in a different way to the way they may be used in another discipline. For instance an athlete who runs in the 100 meters at the Olympics uses his muscles in a totally different way to the way a 1500 meter runner would use and develop his. Both are using leg muscles and arm muscles to propel themselves but in a totally different way.
This is the same with each sport, and to ensure that we stay injury free when playing sport or keeping fit it is important to understand what muscle groups we are using, how much we need to train them and how to ensure that we do not injure those muscles.

An effective warm up routine is always a wise idea no matter what sport you will be taking part in, stretching the relevant muscle groups that are going to be used is vital to ensure that you do not tear any muscles. But do not think by doing a quick stretch that everything will be ok, you need to stretch thoroughly and not only the major muscle groups that are being used but the stabilising muscles also. For instance a golfer should stretch his shoulders, triceps, biceps and forearms before taking his first swing of the day and then take a few slower swings to give the muscles that extra stretch.

The same goes for all sports, common sense must prevail before starting. But taking care of your muscles is not the only thing that need that you should be aware of to prevent injury in sport. Your eyes are possibly more important than any muscle group in the body, you can recover from a torn hamstring but a golf ball or hockey puck to the eye is a totally different thing. In any activity where it is possible to wear protective eyewear you should do so. Even where there is not an inherent danger of getting hit in the eye from a flying object the rays from the sun can still do hidden damage to your eyes that over a prolonged period of time can result in severely impaired eyesight. Sports eyewear has come a long way over the past ten years, sports glasses are now more fashionable, lighter and more comfortable to wear than ever before so you should have no excuse for not putting on the correct eyewear as soon as you have finished your sports warm up.

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Protective Sports Eyewear
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Harwood E Woodpecker

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