I'm really not sure when it happened. For many years I know I made pancakes from scratch. After all, I have my Mom's recipe and if I get bored with that (although that is hard to imagine) I have Fanny Farmer and Joy of Cooking and Marion Cunningham to name a few places where I am sure to find a killer pancake recipe. Still, at some point I turned to the ease of Bisquick and sort of lost track of making plain pancakes from scratch. It may have been because Max loved pancakes and he could make them himself if there was Bisquick on hand. The mix makes OK pancakes, but they tend to be light on flavor and heavy in texture.
Recently I discovered that whenever we last used the packaged pancake mix Bisquick (and it must have been a while ago because I don't remember using it up) the box was emptied and none was bought to replace it. So I pulled down my copy of Classic Comfort Foods and whipped up a batch using Mom's tried and true recipe. What a difference. These were so flavorful and had a great texture...tender and a bit eggy and not to dry and cakey. I made the batter and Sweetie cooked them in the cast iron skillet and we served them with apple that I had cooked in water with a bit of cinnamon...plus a splash of real maple syrup. Just wonderful!
Pancakes
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1¾ teaspoon baking powder
1 or 2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup milk
Sift together the dry ingredients. In another bowl combine the egg(s), melted butter and milk.
Quickly, with a few strokes, stir the wet ingredient mixture into the dry mixture. If too thick, add up to ¼ cup additional milk. Lumps are OK.
Ladle batter on a hot, greased griddle. Turn when small bubbles appear around the edges. Cook until second side has browned. Repeat until batter is used up.
Serves 4 - 6.
It's weird how "from scratch" has become a Huge Big Deal when back-in-the-day we did this AND memorized phone numbers, too.
ReplyDeleteI am making a POINT of doing things like this, because I honestly think my brain is getting slack. I make rice in a pot now, without a steamer sometimes, simply because...
I know what you mean Tanita. I do make a lot of things from scratch and think nothing of it, but have become used to some shortcuts, too. I laughed and laughed about the memorizing phone numbers because there are so few I can still use from memory...the crutch of the smart phone makes it unnecessary, but slack brains are unlikely when you use yours every day for writing fiction...that is a real job for a brain, especially dialog (well, that's my point of view anyway).
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