Good hungarian pancakes use potato pancakes the size of a big plate as base under the goulash. I never managed to successfully flip such a pancake. I can make small ones that occupy 1/3 of the pan just fine, but if I try anything bigger, they tear, roll, leak the batter... I have a hard time sticking the spatula under them to let the oil in and keep them from sticking to the pan without destroying them in the process - I can't flip them right for the life of me.

I know there are techniques involving two pans, or a plate, where you flip the whole pan (and somehow miraculously not end up with hot oil all over your kitchen) but I do know people manage to flip them using just one pan and some kind of spatula. What's the art?

I guess it involves batter just right, the right temperature, oil depth and pancake thickness, and waiting just long enough so that the batter solidifies all across the pancake during frying the first side. In my case the batter from the surface tends to leak off it as I'm halfway through flipping, or splash everywhere when the pancake lands, or just tears. I nearly burnt one side of the pancake yesterday trying to get it hard enough that it wouldn't depend on spatula underlying most of its surface, and still the other side was quite runny. I don't want to buy another pan just for that, and I'm afraid I'll end up with oil all over the kitchen if I try flipping it onto a plate (I found only using a plenty of oil I'm getting any reasonable results, otherwise it's just thin burnt crust under runny batter.) I just can't get it to the right state to be flippable.

What's the secret?