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Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

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Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

#1

Post by bkazez »

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!

Show HN: I Derived a Pancake
absurdlyoptimized.com

Re: Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

#3

Post by thechao »

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."

Re: Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

#6

Post by airstrike »

thechao wrote: post #3

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."

The good thing about that scenario is no matter how the pancakes come out, you've already won

Re: Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

#8

Post by moron4hire »

> 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.

Re: Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

#9

Post by Finnucane »

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.

Re: Show HN: I Derived a Pancake

#10

Post by chickensong »

thechao wrote: post #3

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."

One size doesn't fit all. By your logic, homemade sourdough isn't bread, you should have packaged Wonder bread.

Keep a box of Krusteaz in the pantry for the kid sleepovers, prepare the night before for an adult brunch.

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