Hmmm. A question about American measurement using cups, but not about inches?
A second for making the batter the night before, and for using buttermilk. I like to separate the eggs and beat the whites separately (in a copper bowl if you have one). I find that it makes fluffier pancakes, but that might not be to your taste.
And yes, go for the real maple syrup if it fits your budget. I guess I don’t have a problem with the artificial stuff if it is offered, because it is so much cheaper, but I’m trying my best these days to stay away from anything with corn syrup. If you prefer blueberry syrup, L L Bean’s used to carry it; I just checked their site, however, and it isn’t shown there now.
This is necessary for waffles, but personally I find it overkill for pancakes. A waffle iron allows for some anti-gravity, and the fluffiness pays off. The flat cooking in the pan is not as conducive, in my experience.
No syrup snob I, but I do appreciate the 100% authentic variety. There’s nothing better on American-style pancakes (still known as “flapjacks” in some parts of the country).
Here’s a good place to order some great syrup online:
Sorry my coding skills are limited; just cut-and paste into your browser. If that doesn’t work, try Googling “Vermont Life” magazine, then go to their online store. Lots of delicious maple goodness on offer.
The first pancake off the pan is always awful. The first pancake is not food; it is a test pancake to make whatever adjustments to temperature and size are necessary. Do not be alarmed when your first pancake is burned on the bottom and wet in the middle. Just keep trying till you get a golden-brown one. Pancake batter is cheap.
Fluffier? Fluffier? Pancakes are hearty lumberjack camping food, to be eaten with bacon and eggs. Lumberjacks care not for fluffy. Dense and moist is how old Stumpy at the logging camp cooks them.
Well, I knew it. My mother is the Queen Freak of Pancakes.
She always opened a tiny can of Green Giant niblet corn, drained it, and dumped it in the mix. To this day, I adore corn in my pancakes. And thank you very much, now I have to go to the store.
:: grabs keys and heads out for pancake mix and canned corn ::
Didn’t your grammas make their own pancake syrup? Mine did, she melted brown sugar, a little corn syrup, mebbe some vanilla… I can’t remember if anything else, probably some butter… And there was always a hot pitcher of that syrup on the table with the pancakes.
I use an electric griddle, and I’ve never had a problem with ruining the first pancake off the pan. Here’s my recipe, the same one my mother always used, courtesy of Miss Betty Crocker:
1 cup flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 beaten egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp cooking oil
*I usually double this recipe, since I’m feeding four people and one of them is a teenage boy.
Stir together the dry ingredients and make a well in the center. In another bowl, stir together the wet ingredients and pour into the well. Stir just until moistened. The batter will be lumpy.
Let it rest while your griddle is heating up. When a drop of water dances, make your pancakes. I don’t mess with that “1/4 cup of batter” business; I just use my spoon and push some batter out of the mixing bowl onto the griddle. When the edges start to hold bubbles (they look slightly dry and the holes don’t close up when the bubbles pop) flip’em. Resist the urge to flatten them with the spatula! After another minute or so check the bottom to see if they’re done.
I prefer butter and Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup (pauses while the maple purists heads explode), while my son will slather on butter and pure brown sugar and then spend the rest of the morning bouncing off walls. And you don’t want a lot of grease on your griddle; just use enough to make it shiny. My pancakes are light and thick (the better to soak up the syrupy goodness) while still being structurally sound; I despise store-bought mixes because it is my contention that pancakes are not supposed to dissolve on contact with syrup. If I want a plate of mush I’ll cook grits.
Actually, corn doesn’t sound bad in pancakes. Not really breakfast pancakes, but when we are having them for dinner with bacon, eggs, and hasbrowns… Hmm. may have to try that!
What’s freakish about that? There’s a restaurant near me that serves corn cakes (pancakes with corn in them, though they might have also used cornmeal in place of some of the flour) with chili. They’re very good.
Ack. Maple syrup is disgusting; its only proper application is to create a substitute for brown sugar needed for a cookie recipe. Berry syrups are the only choice for those of us who can’t even stand the smell of maple syrup. I recommend strawberry or cranberry, though blueberry and bosenberry are not bad either.
I had forgotten about this, but it’s definitely true!! Throw the first one away, or feed it to the dog.
And I’ll second the corn pancakes as a sometime diversion. They’re good, but will never surrender the top spot to regular, unadulterated pancakes. No blueberries or bananas or whip cream or chocolate. Just the 'cake and some butter. Served fresh and hot. I like a stack of 3, with plenty of butter all around. Then before I eat them, I swap the top and bottom 'cake to get that nice melted butter right on top where I can see it.
This thread is really amusing for some reason. First the French Onion Soup thing - “lots of” butter, “plenty of” onions, bullion to cover them. Does anyone measure for French Onion soup? (Have I ever had a recipe?)
Pancakes are one of the things my kids - who are six and seven - can make pretty much by themselves (we supervise the stove thing). Of course, we use pancake mix, so it isn’t like they have to mix up a lot of ingredients. In the U.S. pancake mix comes in the “just add water” variety. I’m sure they are better made from scratch with real buttermilk, but I’m not bothering around my house. I’ve never really had problems with burnt pancakes unless I’m not paying attention or get distracted, you watch until the bubbles burst in the middle of the pancake and close slowly, then flip.
Corn pancakes are a favorite of mine, as are pancakes with a bit of crunchy peanut butter thrown in. (Not much, the peanut butter flavor can overwhelm if you use very much at all) My dad loved to experiment on Sunday mornings with combinations for pancake or waffle batter while everyone else was using the bathroom to get ready for church. Peanut butter pancakes are good with either a bit of honey, or apple butter, or even Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup. I’m still trying to get the secret of how he managed to get savory waffles with pieces of bacon and cheddar cheese cooked in them. I think he put the cheddar cheese in the mixer and it got crumbled to tiny bits, there weren’t molten cheese spots, just a distinct cheddar flavor. He didn’t have a horrible mess on the waffle iron, if he had he wouldn’t have made them again. I’m going to have to ask him how he did that again, see if he’ll tell me. He too, makes homemade syrup at times. Once, I mistook a pitcher of it for chilled coffee. Luckily the distinctive syrup smell wafted out shortly after I began nuking it, and I realized what it was and poured it back. I’m just glad I opted for warmed coffee that day, and not iced coffee. That would have been quite the shock.
Contrary to apparently popular American belief, the UK is not entirely metricated. We use inches, but measuring cups are uncommon.
Similarly with the maple syrup debate: it’s not a common commodity here. I’m sure that everyone loves monkeys can find some in a large city like Glasgow, but she may not have more than one variety to choose from.
It is. I prefer the American volumetric system. Simpler and more accurate, particularly for baking, IMO.
I use both Euro and US recipes, and the US ones are much easier to follow, if you have the right measure.
Here, liquids are done by volume (in millilitres) and solids and powders by weight (in grammes). This works OK, but you need a measuring jug and scales at the same time.
Subsitution is more difficult in the US method - if you have a finer flour than the recipe calls for, you will over-flour if you substitute by volume, but not by weight.
Another place where my use of the US system falls down is for something like butter, where it is impossible to measure a cup without melting it - but this is because our butter pats don’t have estimate lines on the pack. However, weighing butter is also a pain, since you need something greaseproof in the scales, and it usually creates a mess.