Making Perfect Pancakes

We've gone through a bit of a cupcake dry spell around here, due to a combination of me not feeling well, and a broken mixer. This morning I was thinking about a pancake post I made when I first started this blog. So many people told me the could not as in were incapable of making pancakes. Well, that is just sad and I'm here to help. So here it is....

How to Make Perfect Pancakes

For me the perfect pancake is not too fluffy, but not too thin either. It should be flavorful without an aftertaste or grittiness. It should be cooked evenly and not over or underdone. This is my pancake recipe, and then we'll talk about cooking them.

Pancakes

~makes 9-10 pancakes

3 tablespoons room temp butter

3 tablespoons sugar

2 eggs room temp

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cup milk (if you want to have butter milk pancakes, only use a half cup of milk and 3/4 cup of buttermilk)

Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl whisk all dry ingredients together. Add eggs to the creamed butter and sugar one at a time and mix well between each. Alternate adding the dry ingredients with adding the milk to your batter. Add them in thirds and mix between each.

Let your batter stand for 5 minutes.

While you are waiting for you batter to be ready you can prepare your griddle or frying pan. 

Take a small amount of vegetable oil and put it on your cooking surface. Using a paper towel wipe the oil all over the surface removing excess. It should be just coated, your should not be able to see drip marks of oil. You can use a spray if you wish, I have never used a spray but I would assume you may still want to wipe it once.

Set your stove temp on low and let it warm up for a few minutes. To test to see if it's ready you can drop a single drop of water on the pan to see if it sizzles. If it sizzles and smokes.....too hot!

Take a small amount of batter and pour it in the pan to make a tester pancake. It's time to flip a pancake, when bubbles start to rise in the center of the cake. Once it's flipped, it should only have to cook for another 30-40 seconds before it's done.

Tester troubleshooting

If your tester is yellow, the pan has not been given enough time to warm up

If your tester has a pattern on it that looks like little rings, you have too much oil in the pan

if the tester burns, lower you temp and remove the pan from the stove for a minute or two before trying again.

If the tester is wet in the middle, but perfectly brown on the outside, again the pan is too hot.

For extra fun, use a pancake design tube or a washed out squeezable bottle (like a ketchup bottle) to make designs and letters for the kids. If you're doing letters, make them in the pan backwards, so you can serve them pretty side up.

If you are pancake challenged in anyway, I'd love to hear from you. Help me, help you make perfect pancakes.