Buttermilk Pancakes

Everyone has a type of food that resonates deep in their heart. A personal kind of soul food ripe with memories and emotion. For me – its pancakes. Pancakes are Saturday mornings after sleepovers, kitchen chairs pulled up to the counter, and Mom’s fancy wine glasses filled with orange juice. Chocolate chips inside, or blueberry pie filling on top, and my brother’s odd request for them to always be undercooked in the center.

I may not be standing on kitchen chairs while manning the griddle anymore, but my love of pancakes has never faded. This is why I decided that Buttermilk Pancakes would be the perfect recipe for my very first blog post! So what makes a perfect pancake? It needs to be sturdy, flavorful, soft, and fluffy. Thick enough to stand up to the most creative toppings, ( I strongly suggest any leftover Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp always be used as a pancake topping), but not dense or rubbery.

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The key to perfect pancakes, in my humble opinion, is to treat the batter gently. We start in the usual fashion – sifting together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla extract, and maple syrup. (Yes, I put maple syrup in my pancake batter; just trust me.) Once those are whisked together, pour them into the bowl of dry ingredients you sifted together earlier. Give them a light whisk – just 2 or 3 times around the bowl to get it started. Then pour in the melted butter. Once the melted butter is in we can continue whisking. This is where we need to treat the batter gently. We are going to whisk it until the batter has just come together. We want there to still be some lumps – this means we’ll have light and fluffy pancakes.

When you have carefully mixed your batter, let it sit for a few minutes while your griddle heats up. This will give the leaveners and buttermilk time to work their magic! I prefer using an electric griddle for my pancakes because I find the cook to be more even and I like that I don’t have to fiddle with the temperature as much as when I cook them on the stovetop. Definitely feel free to cook them how you feel most comfortable. When I use my griddle I set the temperature to 350 degrees. I don’t typically grease the griddle as it is non-stick, but a little extra butter never hurt anyone.

Once your griddle is nice and hot you can start to scoop out your batter. I like to use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to scoop out the batter, but you can adjust the size to your needs. Scoop out a few pancakes, being careful not to overcrowd your griddle or pan. We need to leave the pancakes some space to expand. Now comes the hardest part of this entire process: waiting. We must wait for the griddle to do its job. This means no fiddling with the spatula and poking at the batter while it cooks. That is how you end up with wonky sided pancakes and a gunky spatula. Let the pancakes sit on the griddle until you notice that the edges are looking more tacky than wet, and the top of the pancake is forming bubbles.

Once the top starts forming those large bubbles it is safe to check the underside of the pancake. Gently use your spatula to lift up one side of a pancake to check the color. We are aiming for a nice golden brown color. If the pancake is too pale or doesn’t lift up easily, just let it sit and cook for another minute or so. We want it to be the perfect color before we flip it because we only want to flip it once. Flipping a pancake more than once and cooking it multiple times on each side leads to tough, sad pancakes. Nobody wants tough, sad pancakes.

Okay, so we’ve waited until it was the most perfect, beautiful golden brown color, right? Right. Now it is time to flip! Carefully wiggle your spatula under the pancake, lift it up, and then flip that baby back over into the space it was just occupying. Sometimes the universe has other plans and mistakes happen. Sometimes your pancake gets a little wild and ends up on the ground. That’s okay! Flipping pancakes like a pro takes some practice, but you’ll get there in no time. Now that the pancakes are flipped, we just sit back, relax, and let the griddle finish doing its job. Once the second side is perfectly golden brown your pancakes are ready! Repeat this process with the remaining batter.

Okay, so a few tips for pancakes:

• Be careful not to overmix your batter. Nice and gentle – leave a few lumps!
• Try not to poke at the pancakes with the spatula or move them around the griddle. Patience is important here – and I certainly struggle with this.
• Only flip them once, and try to avoid pressing down on them with your spatula. Remember – we like fluffy, soft pancakes – not sad, tough pancakes.
• Adding 1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon to the batter is always encouraged.
• Leftover pancakes freeze well! I prefer to cook them in the toaster straight from the freezer.

Recipe

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