Pancakes – Breakfast Discussion Over

Q: What do you want for breakfast?

A: I don’t know

The same usually goes for lunch and dinner as well.  This pancake recipe is almost always a good answer (maybe not the healthiest one, but it gets us to the table quicker than most other options).  The great part of pancakes is that the girls can easily get involved in helping.  There are plenty of easy measuring steps and pouring into a bowl to go around.  The difficult part, trying to come up with reasons why we can’t always put chocolate chips inside.

Dry Ingredients

1 1/2 Cups AP Flour

1 T + 1 t. Baking Powder

1 T + 1 t. Granulated Sugar

pinch of salt

*chocolate chips, sometimes optional

 

Wet Ingredients

2 oz. Melted Butter (or canola/vegetable oil)

1 egg

Milk or Buttermilk

 

1. As you can see from the following photos, we sort of wing-it as far as measurements go.  It’s a ‘close enough’ type recipe, but a couple important technique steps involved.  Measure and pour all dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. (multiple pictures of Amelia doing so, keep scrolling)

2. Add egg  (slightly crack egg on side of bowl, crush with tiny fingers until egg product spills mostly into bowl)

3. Pick out pieces of shell that will end up in there with said method.  We’ll get there!

4. Add exact amount of butter/oil.  The most accurate measuring device shown, directly from bottle (again, wing-it)

5. Pour in ‘pre-measured’ amount of milk/buttermilk directly from jug while gently whisking.  This is where the flour and milk now spill over edges of bowl and create a series of gloppy puddles and cover jammies, but it’s almost time to get dressed anyway, so it’s the washing machines problem soon.

6. This is the technique part that is important, DO NOT OVER MIX.  The small lumps of flour are the most important parts of FLUFFY pancakes.  The heat from the pan/griddle shoots these bad boys through the batter as they cook, which makes those air pockets causing the light and fluffy texture you are looking for.  If you overmix the batter, your pancakes will fall flatter than most of my dad jokes (including that gem)

7. We forgot the salt….

8. Spray cooking surface, should be heated to a medium high temperature. If using a griddle or flat top, I usually heat to 400 degrees.

9. Make sure to leave enough space in between each pancakes, ladle to desired size and WAIT for the flipping spots to show.

10. When you see the air pockets doing their thing (thanks to the flying flour bits) and the edges start to become dry, time to flip

*Managed to get them to eat this batch with no chocolate chips, but simply add to batter before ladling onto cooking surface. Now the fight over how much Maple Syrup is too much can begin! ENJOY, please share