Some folks that I eat with regularly, along with a couple of service people at the restaurant where we meet Sunday mornings, tell me my pancake habits are unusual. I slice stacks of pancakes into pie-like wedges, always cutting through the center. I eat them one stack of wedges at a time. I never gave this any thought until it was brought to my attention.
Do you have a pancake eating profile?
Do you cut wedges?
Do you cut strips?
Do you cut a square or rectangular grid?
Or just cut away what you want for the next mouthful? Do you do this from one side to the other, or kind of spiral in eating around the edges?
Do eat a cake at a time, or as I do, down through the whole stack a section at a time?
Do you butter or syrup the all the cakes in advance, or as you uncover each successive cake while eating?
Some years back, as a concession to healthier eating, I stopped one of my habits. I used make a butter reservoir in the stack by sticking my knife down through the center of the “wheel’s hub” and twisting it around to make a hollow space, and slather and pack all the remaining butter down the hole. This was of course after separating the stack to individually butter and pour syrup on the cakes, and then re-stacking them.
I cut irregular shapes with a fork, through all three in the stack. Only three to a stack! Any more than that is just. . .unnatural. Butter on all cakes, syrup over the top of the stack. Add more if needed. Bacon or sausage on the side, swimming in the syrup for its very life.
This is what I do. I call it the Crazy Quilt Method of Pancake Eating. I also spread a thin layer of butter over each cake as I stack them (only three high), and then drown them in syrup before proceeding with the Method.
Said pancakes must be accompanied by link sausages, and if possible, fresh fruit.
I eat this breakfast approximately 4 times a year. Usually it’s yogurt and a bottle of water.
Pancakes should be eaten with syrup and eggs over easy. You, too, can begin eating pancakes the correct way by doing this:
Place first pancake on the plate.
Top with one egg over easy, and then place another pancake over the egg. Press firmly with the flat of your hand, so that the yolk breaks and begins to run between the cakes.
Repeat step 2 with another egg and another cake.
Slather entire stack with syrup.
I don’t care how you cut your pancakes, but you’ve got to construct the stack properly, by jing! Mr. Stuff had never had properly prepared pancakes until we married, and now he will not eat them any other way.
Oh, and if you’re making them at home? Buttermilk recipe from scratch. Get Bisquick near my pancakes, and I’m not responsible for the consequences.
If I’m eating pancakes, it’s usually at IHOP. When I get a stack of 2 or 3 pancakes, the first thing I do is take the little sphere of butter they plop on the stack and put it under the top pancake. Then I proceed to eat the stack dry (no butter or syrup) in a radial fashion, carefully avoiding the middle of the cakes. Finally, I’m left with a small 2" diameter section of pancakes that have melted and soaked up the blob of butter. This sections is affectionately termed the “butter bite” and I chomp it down as the grand finale.
Pancake-butter-pancake-butter-pancake-butter. Apply syrup to one quarter of the stack. Slice off random wedges of syrupy goodness. Apply more syrup. Continue until stack is gone. (Alternating bites of pancake with bites of sausage, also dipped in syrup)
I eat my pancakes (which are delicious and have spoiled me for most restaurants’ pancakes) one bite at a time, preferably with a bite of fresh fruit topping.
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup or so of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking spice (or just use a little cinnamon and cardamom)
glurg of vanilla
pinch of salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed
Add the milk, vanilla and dry ingredients to the egg and combine well. Adjust for consistency by adding either a little more buttermilk or a little more flour. Mix in the blueberries. Fry on a giddle in a minimal amount of fat, such as butter or peanut oil. This only makes about five cakes, so double up if you’re serving more.
I can only eat them one at a time. But you have to butter them all first - this can cause a lot of congestion on a plate, as they’re covering the whole darn plate. Then pour syrup over the one you’re going to eat first. Then I cut them in a gridlike fashion and eat them, syrup-ing each pancake as I get to it. And pancakes shouldn’t have fruit on 'em or in 'em. Yeesh.
Bacon goes on the side on a little “side dish” plate. The kind you throw the orange on that came with the breakfast.
Add coffee - piping hot and black, and I’m good to go.
