alt Hacker NewsShow HN: I Derived a Pancake
After 25 years of making other people's pancake recipes - always yearning for more tang, more fluff, and more predictability - I decided to derive the pancake recipe from the chemistry.
You mark checkboxes for what you have on hand (ricotta, sour cream, kefir, buttermilk, yogurt, cottage cheese, lemon, cream of tartar, etc.) and it computes the best recipe based on targets for acid, fat, salt, sugar, and CO2.
My particular favorite are the yeast-raised lemon ricotta kefir pancakes - the best I've ever had.
The math is done in a small pure-ESM library: ingredient composition to component masses and acid moles, a stoichiometry layer, and a bisection solver for the target deficits.
I'm not a chemist, so if something is off, tell me and I will fix it!
Comments
Well I have a new favorite website. I don’t know the last time that I read something that was so thoroughly and multidimensionally my shit.
Not actually measuring crispness when you self report having the perfect equipment to do so is a cruel, cruel tease though.
Awesome work. I'm really interested in the parametric-driven recipe card. I wanted to do something like this for bread recipes where you can tweak the hydration / salt levels to alter the recipe but still get a traditional recipe card. I would be really curious to hear about the approach in more detail.
Yes! The world needs more Parametric-driven recipes. This is fantastic. Love it.
You've covered dairy and acid ingredients, but I honestly have no idea what "Unrendered Berkshire pork fat" is or where I would get it. Is that bacon grease? Saltpork? Lard is common but rendered.
This is great but at this point you should also give the calories since you have all the precise ingredients
Wow. I really like this, but I want it to support non-dairy options.
I would love to see the gluten and dairy free pancake recipe incorporated into this one for additional customizability. For example, what if I’m gluten free but not dairy free? Or happen to only have soy milk on the day but I’ve got plenty of butter?
This is awesome, chefsteps should hire you to do their parametric recipes.
This is wonderful. Could you add European-style (i.e. non-Greek) yogurt as an option? That's what I most often have on hand.
Relevant: The Breakfast Simplex (https://moultano.wordpress.com/2026/02/22/the-hunt-for-dark-...)
This is incredible. I wish it had a dairy free option!
This is what life is about right here
Related somewhat: has anyone read the sci fi book “deep crossings” and if so they remember the discussion of a pancake?
> My particular favorite are the yeast-raised lemon ricotta kefir pancakes - the best I've ever had.
As a lemon ricotta pancake and yeast enthusiast, I look forward to trying your recipe! Thanks for sharing!
I love this
Protip: you don't need buttermilk, you need milk and acid. 1 cup milk and 1tbsp vinegar do the same job and are already in your kitchen.
Source: Frank Proto's pancakes
That's serious commitment for sure, but - I don't know, the image makes it seems like he low-key burned his pancakes 8-\
I'd love to see a "Labne" option
I will do yeast-raised waffles but usually don't bother with pancakes. I usually don't have buttermilk so I mix yogurt and milk. I just eyeball it, about 1/4-1/3 yogurt makes a good consistency. While food science is fun, there's no way I'm doing that much work on a Saturday morning.
> the use of imprecise cup measurements rather than weights
It really does not matter. Both because variation doesn't matter and because weights vs volumes are not going to give a big enough variation to really be detectable.
here's kenji's recipe (footnote 64 in the article, in case you missed it lol):
https://www.seriouseats.com/light-and-fluffy-pancakes-recipe
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A ten hour wait doesn't really strike me as a pancake? You should have a "it's 730am, there's four screaming girls, only two of which are related to me, the dogs are begging for scraps, and the demand for pancakes has crossed into Veblen goods territory."