I’m really weird about pancakes. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve never been as good as the box mix version my mom always made on weekends when my brother and I were kids. Diner pancakes always seem too spongy and greasy, and my own attempts at pancake making in college resulted in super dense, burned-on-the-outside-raw-on-the-inside disappointments.
So I haven’t actually tried to make pancakes since college, and I graduated 10 years ago. I’ve learned a lot about cooking since then, but pancakes have remained on my Things to Fear in the Kitchen list anyway (along with things like rice and pies, both of which I’ve now conquered). Adam has been dropping hints about how much he’d love to see pancakes in the recipe rotation for years, but it wasn’t until Laura Ann gave me some real Vermont maple syrup a few weeks ago that I decided to give it a try.
I went with Alton Brown’s recipe for “instant” pancake mix, which makes a bulk quantity of the dry ingredients that you can then scoop out whenever you want to make pancakes. I love this idea. And I followed his directions as closely as I could, but I found that the actual pancake batter needed more buttermilk to get to the right consistency. So I’ve slightly tweaked the recipe to reflect the amount I used. First is the mix recipe, followed by the actual pancake recipe.
Alton Brown’s “Instant” Pancakes:
For the “instant” pancake mix:
6 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda (check expiration date first)
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar
Combine all of the ingredients in a lidded container. Shake to mix. Use the mix within 3 months.
**The mix will make 3 batches of pancakes if you follow his recipe below. I scooped out the amount of mix I needed for this batch of pancakes and stored the rest in one of my Weck jars.
“INSTANT” PANCAKES:
2 eggs, separated
2 1/4 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons melted butter
2 cups “Instant” Pancake Mix, recipe above
1 stick butter, for greasing the pan
2 cups fresh fruit such as blueberries (or chocolate chips in our case), if desired