PrintSunday Brunch: Great, Great, Pancakes
At our house Sunday brunch or breakfast (depending on how early my wife gets up) is the perfect excuse to whip up a batch of featherlight pancakes with a crispy veneer and tender insides. This recipe is adapted from Pam Anderson, a really fine cookbook writer. You'll find it after the jump, along with some terrific variations. (The chocolate chip pancakes rock.) If you've got a great pancake recipe we'd love to hear about it.
Addictive Sunday Pancakes
- serves 4 people (or two Levine brothers); makes 8 four-inch pancakes -
Adapted from The The Perfect Recipe by Pam Anderson.
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose bleached flour (softer than unbleached flour)
2 tsps. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
2 Tbs. unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Vegetable oil for brushing the griddle
Procedure
1. Heat a large non-stick skillet or griddle over low heat while preparing ingredients. Mix flour, sugar, salt (if using salted butter, reduce salt to 1/4 tsp.), baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl.
2. Microwave buttermilk and milk in a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup to room temperature, 20 to 30 seconds. Whisk in egg, butter and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and whisk until just mixed.
3. Return batter to measuring cup, stirring in a teaspoon or so of water, if necessary, to make a thick but pourable batter.
4. Increase heat to medium and generously brush skillet or griddle with oil. When oil starts to spider, but before it starts to smoke, pour batter, about 1/4 cup at a time. Work in batches, if necessary, to avoid overcrowding. When pancake bottoms are golden brown and tops start to bubble, 2 to 3 minutes, flip pancakes; cook until golden brown on remaining side. Repeat, brushing skillet or griddle with oil. Serve hot.
Variations
Lemon Poppy Seed Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, whisking 1 tsp. of finely grated lemon zest and 1 tsp. of poppy seeds into the dry ingredients.
Orange Cardamom Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, whisking 1 tsp. of finely grated orange zest and 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom into the dry ingredients.
Gingerbread Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, substituting 4 tsps. of molasses for the sugar and adding it to the wet ingredients, then whisking 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsps. ground ginger and 1/8 tsp. ground cloves into the dry ingredients.
Chocolate Chip Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, sprinkling 1 Tb. of miniature chocolate chips over the uncooked side of each pancake as it cooks.
Banana Nutmeg Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, whisking 1/2 tsp. nutmeg into the dry ingredients and dropping 5 or 6 thin slices of banana (you'll need 2 small bananas total) over the uncooked side of each pancake as it cooks.
Ginger Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, whisking 1 tsp. ginger into the dry ingredients and sprinkling 1 Tb. of finely chopped crystallized ginger (about 1/2 cup total) over the uncooked side of each pancake as it cooks.
Lemon Blueberry Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, whisking 1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest into the dry ingredients and sprinkling about 2 Tbs. frozen blueberries (you'll need about 1 cup total) over the uncooked side of each pancake as it cooks.
Almond Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, substituting 1 tsp. almond extract for the vanilla extract.
Corn Pancakes: Follow pancake recipe, reducing flour to 3/4 cup and whisking 1/2 cup fine yellow cornmeal into dry ingredients, and sprinkling 2 Tbs. of frozen corn (about 1 cup total) over the uncooked side of each pancake as it cooks.
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7 Comments:
These pancakes do sound amazing---the lemon poppy seed, banana & gingerbread variations are ones I'll try!
JEP at 9:42AM on 10/21/07
Repost of my earlier this week hotcake dilemma based on Big Ed's Market Restaurant's (Raleigh, NC) hotcake.
http://www.seriouseats.com/talk/2007/10/hotcake-recipe-and-the-griddled-cake-confusio.html
After trying to play with regular recipes I drug out a recipe posted by Nicole at bakingbites.com for Dutch babies.
http://bakingbites.com/2006/07/sunday-brunch-dutch-babies/
Here is what I did to it to make it as close to Big Ed's.
I used self rising flour, I added 1/4 milk to the recipe and changed the 1/2 cup of milk to buttermilk. I used 2 TBSP of sugar, a pinch of cinnamon and 1.5 tsp of vanilla bean paste (regular vanilla will work just fine)
I baked the hotcake according to Nicole's instructions and it is about as close as I can get without breaking out poundcake recipes and adding milk to them till I hit pay dirt.
The dutch babies recipe is very good as written. Thank you Nicole for doing all the hard work for me.
I recommend you try dutch babies and or my take on Big Ed's.
Either way your in for some serious hotcake.
JerzeeTomato at 1:34PM on 10/21/07
If you have a griddle accessory for your gas grill, I heartily recommend using it for Sunday breakfasts. Fry up some bacon, leaving the fat on the griddle to cook the 'cakes. Heart-stoppingly good, folks. I've tried from scratch and using *gasp!* the shortcut dry mixes, other than a subtle taste difference (obviously from scratch has a little more zing) they always turn out melt-in-your-mouth fabulous.
One caution though, regular cut bacon is sometimes too thin to work with easily. I suggest using a good thick cut, non-peppered bacon (unless you like bits 'o pepper in your pancakes).
Ever since I tried this method, nothing else comes close.
eromitlab at 2:09PM on 10/21/07
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup yogurt (any kind you want to flavour your pancakes)
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 tbsp melted butter
i like to mix all of the wet ingredients except the butter in the bowl of my kitchenaid stand mixer. then i add the flour/salt/bs/bp/sugar. mix til combined. then i add the butter. they are light and fluffy and delicious. i often add a tsp of cinnamon as well, just because i love it. so far i have tried quite a few variations. a favourite was toasted walnut and pear with cinnamon.
lexophile at 4:40PM on 10/21/07
Do you really need both baking soda and powder? I've used the simple recipe of ones for years to much success.
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
Mix, then add:
1 large egg
1 cup dairy (either buttermilk or half milk and half whole milk yogurt)
Bring together with whisk.
Heat pan, and melt 1 tablespoon of butter. Pour excess butter into batter and start cooking.
I think I got this from Mark Bittmann - keeping it simple.
hreisig at 6:43PM on 10/21/07
After testing many pancake recipes, I found the one from Best Recipes (America's Test Kitchen) to be the best. It calls for baking soda and powder. The recipe is very similar to the one featured here.
MBinDC at 10:21AM on 10/22/07
The baking soda counteracts the acid in the buttermilk. The ingredient list for this recipe (less the vanilla) is the one from Best Recipes. I makes that recipe a couple times a week for my three teen/tween boys. I double it, of course. :-) I usually throw blueberries on top.
ThreeDimen at 6:47PM on 10/23/07