Eats: Homemade Apam Balik (Peanut Pancake)
Apam Balik, or Peanut Pancake, is the Malaysian version of the pancake which has fillings of cream corn, roasted peanuts, and sugar.
On a Sunday morning, Mazuin, a friend from high school tagged me in her Instagram story.
She sent me the link to the recipe. It is written in Malay so I have made some adjustments and translations to the recipe.
Though the recipe says it is "crispy crunchy apam balik", but I felt the batter was a little too thick for what I wanted to make.
I have made some adjustments.
Pancake Batter:
Wet ingredients:
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cawan air
Dry ingredients:
1 cup plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Filling:
Cream corn
Caster sugar
Roasted ground peanuts.
Method:
1. Beat the eggs and the sugar until well incorporated (and frothy).
2. Then add the water and mix.
3. (mix all the dry ingredients together). Then slowly mix in the flour to the wet ingredients.
Do not over mix the batter as to not overwork the gluten.
The consistency of the batter should be a flowing viscocity. It shouldn't be thick.
For the original recipe:
The original recipe asked for two cups of flour. The batter was too thick, so I ended up adding more water. When I tried to fry the pancake, I realised the batter was not bubbling as much. As such, I ended up adding more bicarb soda and baking powder to the mix which made it look better.
By reducing to one cup of flour, the batter should be more liquidy. Should it be too watery, then add more flour to the batter.
It took me four attempts on the first try before finally getting the pancake to the consistency that I wanted.
Second Attempt:
Somehow I had some leftovers, and decided to use up a two day batter of the pancake as I needed to clear the fridge.
There’s nothing wrong with two day old, or even five day old batter, as that allows the flavours to mature and somehow taste better when cooked.
For the second cooking attempt, I didn’t oil the pan but instead let the pan to burn and crisp up the batter. it worked out better for the pancake as it was the texture that I wanted.
The batter was liquid enough that I could tilt the pan and was able to create a thinner base.
Enjoy!
Comments