American Pancakes
These classic American pancakes are tall and fluffy, just like the ones served in a traditional American diner. The thick batter will be spongy and bubbly, from when the quickly made acidified buttermilk reacts with the baking powders, and when it hits the pan you get a wonderful light and fluffy pancake made. Made plain and eaten traditionally with just maple syrup drizzled over them they are wonderful, but they can also have any sort of topping or filling you want, or can dream up. And you don’t just have to think of fruit or sweet toppings and fillings, like blueberry or chocolate chips and banana, these pancakes also go very well with savoury ingredients like ham, bacon, melted cheese etc.
American Pancakes
makes enough for 4 people – the ingredients can easily be scaled up to make more.
Recipe Ingredients:
- 180ml milk (whole milk 2%)
- 30ml white distilled vinegar
- 125g plain flour
- 25g caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 30g butter (melted)
- cooking spray or a little vegetable oil for frying
to serve the pancakes
- Maple Syrup (to taste)
- knob of butter
or
- optional: a filling or topping of your choice (see below)
Recipe Method:
In a large mixing bowl add in the milk with the vinegar, whisk, and set aside for 5 minutes to ‘sour’ – we are making a quick acidified buttermilk.
In another large mixing bowl sift in the flour, then sprinkle over the sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and the salt.
Whisk the egg and melted butter into the ‘soured’ milk. Fold in the dry flour mixture into the wet ingredients, and then whisk until most of the lumps are gone.
Heat a large frying pan or skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray or a little vegetable oil. Pour a ladle full of batter into the middle of the frying pan and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.
Heat a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it has melted, add a ladle full of batter, help it spread out just a little, but the batter should be thickly coating just the centre of the pan. Cook until the bottom of the pancake is golden brown, and bubbles form on the top of the pancake.
Flip the pancake over using a spatula and cook until the second side is also golden (just a few minutes). When both sides are golden brown, and the pancake has (become fluffy) risen to about 1cm thick, they are ready to plate up. Keep the pancakes warm on a warm plate, and as they build up put a knob of butter on the them to melt and keep them moist and place them in a low oven.
Serve with maple syrup (to taste). Or see below.
Toppings and filling:
A filling (like chopped banans) should be added into the batter after it has first been poured into the frying pan, to cook inside the pancake batter – don’t over-crowd the batter though, only add in a few pieces. Any seasonal fruit, particularly berries, can be added into the batter, if the fruit is big chop it up into bite-sized pieces. Raspberries, Strawberries, blueberries, banana, stewed apple pieces, fresh corn kernels, grated chocolate or chocolate chips etc. all go well.
A topping (like whipped cream and fresh strawberries) should be placed on top of the plain pancakes after they have been plated up. Any topping you can think of, and would enjoy eating, can be added on the top or on the side. Don’t just think ‘sweet’ though – savoury ingredients like bacon, cheese, small cooked sausages etc all work wonderfully well with these pancakes.