Fluffy Pancake

Pancakes are among the oldest prepared foods known to humanity. Archaeologists have found grinding stones and fossil evidence suggesting that humans were making ground-grain flatbreads cooked on hot rocks as far back as 30,000 years ago. Ancient Greeks called them tagenites, Romans had scriblita, and medieval Europe knew them as crêpes. Every civilisation with grain and fire invented a version.

The specifically fluffy, cloud-like pancake associated with modern café menus owes its rise — literally — to baking powder, invented in the 1850s as a faster alternative to yeast leavening. The double-acting baking powder releases carbon dioxide twice: once when it meets liquid, and again when it hits heat. This gives bakers and cooks a controllable rise that was impossible with earlier leavening methods.

The Japanese soufflé pancake, which swept through café culture globally from the 2010s onward, pushed fluffiness to an art form: beaten egg whites folded into the batter create a meringue-like structure that puffs dramatically in the pan. Our version stays true to the spirit of that lightness — three genuinely fluffy pancakes served with sliced seasonal fruits, berry compote and a honey-maple-butter sauce that pools in every fold.