Basic Fluffy Pancakes

When I think of breakfast, usually the first few things that come to mind are eggs, bacon, cereal, and of course pancakes! The great thing about pancakes is it's versatility. Add some blueberries. Voilà! Blueberry pancakes. Top with strawberries, strawberry pancakes! Add some chocolate chips, chocolate chip pancakes! The choices are endless. Another plus is the fact that it can be easily made with common pantry staples. In other words there is no reason for you to buy the boxed mix! Well I tried a few recipes online, tweaked it here and there and this is what I have come up with. Pretty much your basic super duper fluffy pancake recipe. Seriously, my dad said it was too fluffy. I berated him and told him he does not know good food. Please enjoy!

P.S. Want to impress your significant other? Make this for him/her!

Fluffy Pancakes
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 egg
2 tablespoon butter, melted and cooled
vegetable oil for frying pan

1. Combine milk with lemon juice and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour."
2. Meanwhile, sift dry ingredients together.
3. Whisk the egg and melted butter into the "sour" milk.
4. Pour the dry ingredients into the sour milk mixture and mix until moistened. DO NOT OVER MIX! The mixture should be slightly lumpy but you should not see obvious signs of dry flour.
5. Heat a non stick skillet over medium heat and add a small amount of oil. Wipe away the excess with a paper towel so that there is just a thin layer of oil. Add 1/4 cup of batter (pancakes will be about 6 inches in diameter) onto the pan and cook until bubbles form on the surface. Flip with a spatula and cook until the other side is browned. (If you do it right, and for maximum fluff, you should only be flipping once.)
6. Serve with butter and maple syrup or other fancy toppings.

Green Tea Marble Chiffon Cake

As an avid green tea lover, I love all things green tea. Green tea candy, green tea drinks, green tea sweets, green tea! I decided to make this cake on a whim and loved it so much that I made the same cake in two consecutive days. It is so good that the first one was devoured within 24 hours. The original recipe of this cake came from Cosy Bake, however I ended up tweaking the recipe because it was extremely difficult to combine matcha paste homogeneously with batter. During the first attempt, there was pretty much huge undissolved chunks of matcha. I tried to combine it as best I could but the over mixing just destroyed the fluffiness of the whipped egg whites. In an effort to curb that problem I decided to go with a dual batter approach. Although it is a little more work, I can assure you that the resulting cake is beautiful, super moist, super soft, and delicious! Again, I recommend using a high quality matcha powder for a stronger and tastier green tea flavor.

Green Tea Marble Chiffon Cake
Note: We will be making two different batters to combine to create the marble effect.

Plain Batter:
90 grams cake flour
1 tablespoon matcha powder, high quality preferred
2/3 teaspoon baking powder
4 egg yolks
40 grams vegetable oil
40 grams sugar
90 milliliters water

Green Tea Batter:
90 grams cake flour
1 tablespoon matcha powder, high quality preferred
2/3 teaspoon baking powder
4 egg yolks
40 grams vegetable oil
40 grams sugar
90 milliliters water

8 egg whites
80 grams sugar

1. Preheat oven to 356°F.
2. Sift the cake flour and baking powder together. (Sift the matcha powder along with the flour and baking powder in the green tea batter.)
3. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks, water and oil together until combined. Add the sugar into the mixture and mix well. Then in small additions, add the flour to the mixture until combined into a batter. Repeat for the green tea batter.
4. Whip egg whites until foamy and then slowly add in sugar. Continue whipping egg whites until stiff peaks form. Divide the whipped egg whites into two equal portions.
5.  Add 1/3 of the egg whites with the batter and mix to combine. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites into the batter. Repeat the same process with the other half of the egg whites in the green tea batter.
6. Fill the chiffon tin with plain batter and then layer with matcha batter in between. (You can combine the batter in any fashion you like. Play around with it to get a design you like! )
7. Bake cake for 10 minutes at 356°F. Reduce heat to 320°F and bake for another 40 minutes. To check if the cake is fully cooked, take a skewer and poke the cake from the top of the cake to the bottom of the pan. If the skewer comes out clean, it is finished! Remove the cake from the oven, invert the pan immediately and allow to cool.
8. Slice, serve and enjoy!