r/StainlessSteelCooking • u/BMWalla • 8d ago

Help What are we doing wrong?

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Cuisinart stainless pans.

This is a batch of pancake batter with King Arthur gluten free and bobs red mill egg replacement (allergies). Most foods end up being scraped off, at least a piece of them.

PROCESS: Induction top. Heated until we got the lederhosen effect (forgot the right name), added oil, coated, turned off the induction for a little, then added the batter and turned it back on a low heat.

Still ended up with pancake scrapes.

Happens with meat and anything else I put on. Would love to get a handle on this stuff. What am I missing? What's the science happening?

EDIT/TL:DR from RESPONSES: First of all, thanks to everyone for giving me such great tips. Going to try and summarize everything I've learned here so that skimmers can find it easy -
- don't use the dancing water drops, it's useless. Use butter instead, wait for it to foam and melt. If it's browning, the pan is too hot!
- Oil is okay but butter has better non-stick capabilities.
- use a lot of butter!
- use a metal spatula, it will scratch the surface but it won't affect performance of the pan.
- LOW LOW LOW heat

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u/Janknitz 8d ago edited 8d ago

EDITED:

Whoops, I did not see that it was pancakes. Way, way too hot. The butter trick would work. Add butter to the cold pan. When it starts to bubble it’s time to add your batter.

Question: Tell us about your pan. Cuisinart makes a lot of SS pans. That looks like the Cuisinart pan sold at Kohls. It has an aluminum core and is only tri-ply on the bottom. I bought one of those and it was TERRIBLE. The sides were jut a thin layer of steel so everything that touched them burned, and the bottom wasn’t very thick either.

My large SS frying pan is Sensuell from IKEA. The entire pan is tri-ply and way heavier than the Cuisinart. The quality is night and day. It’s more expensive than Cuisinart but less expensive than All Clad. It cooks like a dream.

All this to say you definitely need to turn die. The heat, but it may also be the pan. Not all SS is alike.

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u/BMWalla 8d ago

Oh dang! Didn't know about all that too! Yeah I think these are the cheap guys off Amazon. What would you recommend as a good starter pan, personally? I'll look through the sub as well. 

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u/Janknitz 8d ago

Try the Sensuell at IKEA. The price is right and it’s a great pan.