Ease: 1/5 (5 being difficult)
Ahhhh, pancakes. Fluffy, pillowy cakes dripping with sweet maple syrup. It's The American Breakfast. I've always used a pancake mix to make pancakes. I tried to make them from scratch once and they were rubbery and awful. I have since stuck to the mix...until now. I've been inspired by all these other blogs that I read to make my food from scratch. So...I've decided to start with the easiest, although a little tricky, recipe: Pancakes.
I got the recipe from allrecipes.com. It received 5-star reviews with almost all the reviewers saying this was the best-tasting and fluffiest pancake. I did a little additional research on making pancakes, that I believe made them come out as fluffy as can be. I'll share those tips as we make our way through the recipe.
Supposedly, this recipe made 8 pancakes. I got 12. Next time, I'll cut the recipe in half since I have some extra that no doubt will get inedible by the time we are in the mood to snack on pancakes.
First, the dry ingredients (this will make 12):
- 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 3.5 tsps baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
The wet ingredients:
- 1.25 cups milk, slightly warmed
- 1 egg (room temperature)
- 1.5 tbsp butter (melted)
- 1 tsp vanilla
The original recipe called for 3 tbsp of butter. When I saw how much that was, I cut it down to half. I think next time I'll omit it all together and see what happens. I didn't feel like it tasted buttery or needed that butter flavor.
1. In a standard mixing bowl, whisk all dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. If possible, sift all ingredients. This has been suggested as a tip to make pancakes fluffy. I just whisked the dry ingredients for a couple of minutes and made sure it was all mixed and ours came out fluffy.
2. In a second mixing bowl, whisk all wet ingredients - egg, milk, butter and vanilla. To bring the egg to room temperature quickly, run it under warm tap water for a minute or so. Microwave the milk for 30 sec. Melt the butter using the microwave as well. Whisk all wet ingredients very well. I start out beating the egg and making sure there are lots of air bubbles. Then I add milk and vanilla, with the melted butter added last.
3. After the wet ingredients are mixed well, pour into the bowl containing the dry ingredients. This may seem like a waste of time, but the separation of wet and dry ingredients is what makes pancakes an "easy" recipe as opposed to "tricky". If the wet ingredients are directly added to the dry ingredients, and then whisked, the batter will end up tough because of the gluten that has formed. To minimize gluten formation, whisk the wet ingredients separately and then add it to the dry ingredients, whisking gently until the batter comes together. I whisked the batter for 2-3 minutes, even though there were lumps. Lumps in pancake batter are not an issue, apparently. Mine was very lumpy (I did NOT want rubbery pancakes) and they came out totally fine.
When your batter looks like this:
Closeup of batter
it's ready to go. Let it sit uncovered for 30 minutes at room temperature.4. Bring a griddle or frying pan to medium-high heat. I use a nonstick griddle so I didn't need oil or butter before pouring batter onto the pan. If you don't have a nonstick griddle - invest in one! - add about 1/2 tsp of oil before pouring batter. Once batter is poured I put a few drops around the edge of the pancake to crisp it up even further. When your pancake looks like this:
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...
it's ready to be flipped. After flipping, do NOT press down on it - this will remove any fluffiness that was created! Let it cook for another 30 seconds and then transfer to a plate.
And there you go!! Fabulous, fluffy pancakes. Drizzle with warm maple syrup. For an extra touch of decadence, add a pat of butter on top of the stack. I don't like the taste so I don't add it. Plus, I wanted to keep the health-o-meter within my scale. :)'Til the next dish...
