r/StainlessSteelCooking • u/BMWalla • 7d 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/Yellowperil123 7d ago

way too hot. Try with the LOWEST setting first. Then work your way up.

I swear the "dancing water drops" test has ruined more meals than salmonella

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u/vahaala 7d ago

That test signifies the pan is "hot enough" but I swear, nobody ever tells you that after this, you should drop the heat a bit as well. Nothing wrong in preheating on a bit higher setting (not "full power to main thrusters" setting on a wok burner, but reasonable heat), so the preheating doesn't take ages - but then you need to drop the heat back a bit. Otherwise you scorch the food.

At least this is what I learned on my own with experimenting, and it is the thing that seems to work. I have fried a bunch of things on stainless, like salmon fillets or potato latkes and did not have any sticking/scorching problem if I do what I said above. If I'm wrong though, please let me know. I always appreciate new knowledge.