I like pancakes.
I like them thick and fluffy and full of maple syrupy goodness. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find good pancakes. So finally out of desperation, I stole a recipe from Alton Brown. So now I get pancakes like this:
Luckily, good pancakes are fairly simple. It turns out that the fluffiness that you want comes from combining just the right leavening agents with the right amount of heat.
Here’s what I do: the following scheme makes between six and eight pancakes depending on how big you make them.
In bowl #1, mix:
2 cups flour
between 1/2 and 1 teaspoon of baking soda
between 1 and 2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
Mix this up with a whisk so that everything is combined very evenly. This is important.
Next, in bowl #2 beat up 2 eggs. Then melt 1/4 stick of butter and mix that in. Then measure about 2 cups of buttermilk and mix that in. I do this differently than Alton, who separates the eggs to make them mix better, because I am a lazy bastard.
Now pour the contents of bowl #2 into bowl #1. Get your whisk and mix it about 10 times. All you need to do is get the dry ingredients wet and mixed together. It’s OK if it’s lumpy, the lumps will cook out. If the mixture is too thick (it usually is for me because I measure the flour too aggressively) then add a tablespoon or two of plain milk to thin it out. It’s important not to overmix here because it makes the pancakes chewy.
Now heat up a pan or griddle. The cooking surface should be between 350 and 400 degrees. Put one scoop of batter in the pan. I use a small soup ladle for this purpose. Let the batter cook on one side for about two minutes. When you see bubbles on the top side, flip the pancakes over and cook them for another two minutes. Don’t get impatient here, or you will get goopy wet pancakes. Those suck.
If you did everything right, when you flip the pancake it will puff up like this:
If it doesn’t do this, your pan is not hot enough and the leavening in the batter is not activating. The result will be thin rubbery pancakes that no one will like, so turn the heat up a bit. I had this happen when I tried to use a shitty electric griddle to cook pancakes on. I have since gone back to using my trusty steel frying pan or the cast iron griddle.
When the cakes are done, put them on a plate and pour some maple syrup over them. If I catch you using that brown corn syrup crap on your pancakes I will hunt you down like a dog. If you did everything right, the syrup will fill up the little air holes in the pancakes with mapley goodness. There really isn’t anything better to eat for breakfast.
I have been experimenting with adding cinnamon and ginger to the dry mix above to try and get closer to the spicy flavor in Dottie’s pancakes. But I’m not there yet.
Thanks for including temperatures in degrees. I don’t understand why modern ranges can’t measure in degrees, instead of along an arbitrary (and likely non-linear) 1-N scale. I also don’t understand why the range in my apartment, with it’s bridge element specifically designed for griddle use, can’t heat the whole griddle evenly. @#&*@&#* “professional series” my ass.
Try adding a touch (just a touch!) of vanilla extract to the wet stuff. And then a drift (just a drift!) of freshly grated nutmeg to the dry stuff.
Good places to start might be a 1/4 tsp of the former and 3 or 4 grates of the latter; it’s very to taste.
If I mention how much I like Pamela’s here, you’ll reach out of the blog and gut me, right?
I was not aware they served pancakes at Pamela’s… thin little grease disks, yes, pancakes, no.
I frequently add a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg to the pancake batter, and quite like the results. Alternately, you can add just a bit of Penzey’s apple pie spice mix.
Snoqualmie Falls pancake mix is excellent.
http://www.snoqualmiefalls.com/store/featured.shtml
Hello, I like pancakes too!
Perhaps you feel like submitting a recipe to cookingforengineers d0t com sometime
Being that my family is Finnish, we grew up with pancakes that look nothing like your picture. The English-speaking world calls our pancakes “crepes.” Whenever I eat pancakes that are thick and fluffy like you describe, I find them to be dry and flavor-less. But I guess that’s because I’m used to rolling my pancakes into a tube and filled with fruit, jam, or ice cream.
Drowlord: “Blini” in russuan
Or “Eierkuchen” or “Pfannekuchen” in german, depending on what part you’re in.
This is quite similar to my own recipe (adapted from my now-ex’s “healthy” recipe that didn’t call for salt or sugar at all, and was therefore inedible).
For the flour, I tend to use half buckwheat and half whole white wheat, which gives a hardier taste (whole red wheat, the usual “whole wheat” you might buy, doesn’t get the texture right — too gritty). Buckwheat flour in Pittsburgh comes from the bulk bins at the co-op. At Whole Foods they seem to think that buckwheat flour is as rare and magical as gogi berries, and geagle, last I checked, had never heard of the concept.
I think Americans are the only ones in the world who eat pancakes. Sure, other cultures have crepes, but they don’t slather them in butter and jam and eat them hot for breakfast. I mean, what self-respecting American pancake-eater would serve cold pancakes with jam and eat them at 3 p.m.?
British prefer meat and eggs; French eat pastries. Germans and similar cultures make these big “dutch baby” things that sometimes get called pancakes but are really mainly egg. Japanese eat rice and egg and fish (and French pastries, in modern times).
On the other hand, you see pancake-like foods all over the Americas. Native American frybread, flatbread, tortillas, sopapillas (or are those Spanish rather than Mexican?)….
I was really surprised to realize this. I mean, pancakes are simple and good. What’s not to like? You’re all eating our hamburgers, what’s so weird about pancakes?
My only explanation is that it’s campfire cuisine, and maybe in lands without vast maple groves it just wasn’t worth the effort.
My beau (and resident cook) is fond of cornmeal pancakes. You can get a decent corn pancake mix (Bob’s Red Mill) in the organic aisle of the Iggle.
I have heard that over-mixing is a major cause of gumminess. Also, dry and flavorless pancakes (though they should not be) can be overcome with liberal application of butter and honey.
other cultures have crepes, but they don’t slather them in butter and jam and eat them hot for breakfast
That most certainly is what you do in France. Or actually, true, you don’t usually slather them in butter — you put the butter in the batter.