Well, this looks delightful. But you know, once you watch one video about something on YouTube, you get recommended others. Which means that I've seen now several videos on the subject, and there seems to be some disconnect about how to achieve the desired flakiness. This reminds me of the variable advice I came across once upon a time to get maximum puffing from popovers - different cooks swore by different techniques, but they all seemed to be satisfied with their own results.
Souped Up Recipes says that the use of flour oil is what makes it so flaky and crispy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EgspSFnORo
Some recipes don't seem to require this flour oil, so obviously those cooks don't think this is the essential technique. Chinese Cooking Demystified says that the flour oil actually acts as a roux and serves to bind layers together, which makes sense. They would remain layers, but I'm guessing this roux would draw moisture from above and below while being cooked and form a different kind of layer between.
Strictly Dumpling actually talks mostly about fluffiness, but he talks about layers when he demonstrates how fluffy the pancake comes out, so this appears to be what everyone else is calling flakiness. He holds that massaging the dough is what causes this effect, but he keeps saying that massaging the dough relaxes it, which as far as I understand it actually does the opposite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ipCpZO_WgU&t=901s
Angel Wong's Kitchen recommends scrunching the pancake toward the end of cooking to fluff it up. My guess is that the technique is to have the layers already cooked, but still separable, and when you force them apart and then continue cooking they crisp up better apart. Seems plausible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iew9c7wDfgM
YuCanCook recommends covering the pan while the pancake cooks because the water in the pancake will expand and thus cause flakiness. Seems to me like this will happen anyway -- that's the theory behind hydrating your dough. But does having the lid on intensify this effect?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YPyQWm2rPc
Seems to me like the main thing that creates flaky layers is the oil between layers of dough that have then been squeezed together using the technique of rolling, coiling and flattening, which the heart of the recipe and technique for every version I've seen. I'll bet if I do all that, I'll be pleased with the result. Techniques above and beyond that are possibly just part of a human desire to feel like you have more control than you do.
I think the way I'll try it, when I have some flour again, use the half-hour resting rather than overnight, roll out on a floured surface rather than a messier oiled surface, use just oil on some pancakes and flour oil on others to see if I can detect a difference and form a preference. I'll want to make multiple batches experimenting with the flour ratio, between Souped Up Recipe's 3:2 and Chinese Cooking Demystified's 5:3. Also, I may want to see if the difference between using warm or hot water matters much. And I'll simply be biased toward developing my own version using my Kitchen Aid to do the mixing. Chinese Cooking Demystified says you can use speed 1 on the mixer, and everybody else recommends doing it by hand.
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