Our very favorite pancake recipe
A warm little recipe to feed the soul on this frigid February morning.
If you’re living somewhere that has been experiencing these frigid temperatures and icy conditions, I hope you’re cozied up under a blanket while reading this.
I truly love winter but even I am finding it difficult to be outside for long in these conditions. Our backyard is essentially an ice rink. This entertains the kids and I for a little while: shuffle-skating around the most frozen patches, sliding down smooth ice mountains, collecting fallen pine needles and sticks to make Nellie’s favorite nature soup.
But when the temperatures drop to the single digits, the wind howls so loudly that you can hear it, and it feels like the kids’ noses just stopped running from their last round of colds, we agree it might not be the best time to venture outside. There are perks to being cooped up right now, though.
The glistening landscape. Jutting mountains of dirty ice scraps by side of the road aside, the frozen snow sparkles in the light and we’ve had beautiful alpenglow in the evenings. We were mesmerized by the full moon over our frozen backyard a few nights ago.
Unique sights like my dogs skidding across our ice rink backyard while they chase each other, or my husband skating up and down our street. When this weather first started a couple of weeks ago and we had that second night where everything froze, Tommy grabbed his hockey skates and took to the streets. On his birthday no less. This was a sight we won’t soon forget.
Cozying up inside. With over a week of cancelled school and a little cold that would have kept my 4 year old home anyways, we have had the most incredibly cozy days being together. Lots of snuggling, mornings reading stacks of books piled high, endless games of chase around the house, wearing pajamas all day, forts, bingo, hot chocolate, and diving into our cold-weather-impulse-purchase, a love sac. It is truly a beautiful thing in our house to have no agenda, not rushing around anywhere; we love slowing down and sinking in. And cooking food—lots of good food.
In the spirit of good food, I’ve been wanting to post our favorite pancake recipe for awhile. I can’t say “best pancake recipe” because while it’s the best pancake recipe for us… I could never make the claim that it will be everyone else’s, too.
I have strong memories of making pancakes with my late grandmother, Mimi. I can remember being in her kitchen, standing on a chair next to the stove, watching the pancakes like a hawk ready to flip them with her right by my side. Mimi had a particular pancake style: small, thin, pale, and delicious (silver dollar pancakes, I think some people call them?), and I inherited a love of this style.
While I never remembered her exact recipe*, I always remembered the look and taste. For my whole life, I’ve loved making “Mimi Pancakes”. We make them a little bit bigger than she used to. Tommy likes any kind of pancake, so sometimes we fluff them up a bit with more baking powder or turn up the heat to brown the pancakes a bit more just for fun (the kids call this “Dada Style”). “Mimi Pancakes”, however, are our very favorite and the recipe we’ve made is so simple and absolutely delicious.
Mimi is not physically standing next to me 2-3 times a week when we make this recipe, cooking pancakes and teaching her great granddaughter Nellie how to keep an eye out for the telltale bubbles telling us it’s time to flip. But she’s there. The people we’ve loved and lost live on through us in whichever way we allow and accept, and through the stories we tell and pass on, no matter how small.
xo,
Shannon
*Before writing this post I asked my 3 aunts if they remembered Mimi’s recipe. They remember her using Bisquick mix, lots of butter, and some vanilla. Anything works :)
Our very favorite pancake recipe
Recipe makes 20-30 pancakes depending on size
Pancakes are one of those staple food items that almost everyone loves and almost everyone has an opinion on. There’s not one way to make a pancake. They can be big, small, thick, thin. Made from scratch or using boxed mix. Dark or light coloring. Chocolate chips, blueberries, plain, or if you’re my kids—butterscotch chips. There are endless ways to make pancakes and everyone has their own preferences.
We spent a long time perfecting this extremely simple recipe, and once we perfected it we haven’t changed it. The pancakes in our recipe are light, thin, melt in your mouth, and delicious. If you like fluffier pancakes, add more baking soda or reduce the milk a bit. If you like them even more thin, add more milk. Often I’ll make about half of the batter and then thin out the remaining batter with another splash of milk.
I hope this recipe brings a little golden joy to your mornings.
Ingredients
1.5 cups flour, sifted
2.5-3 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1.5 cups milk
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
Additional butter to cook the pancakes
Optional Add-Ins: chocolate chips, blueberries + white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, flax seed, chia seed, whatever you like!
1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. We started sifting the flour as we added it in and feel like it makes the pancakes even more smooth.
2. Make a little well in the center and add your milk, melted butter, vanilla, and egg. Whisk until smooth.
Note on the melted butter: if you melt this ahead of time and it’s nice and cool when it’s time to add, great. If you’re melting it for this step, add a little dollop of milk to the melted butter before mixing it in to cool it down. This should help prevent the warm butter from solidifying into little clumps as it hits the cool milk.
3. Evaluate the consistency of your batter. Add another splash of milk to thin it out if you’d like, or more flour to thicken. You’ll figure out what you like.
Optional: let your batter rest for at least 10 minutes. We usually do at least 5 minutes while we prep the stove and clean dishes, and with hungry kids we don’t always have time to wait at least 10 minutes. The pancakes are just as good in our opinion. Letting the batter rest will give the ingredients time to meld together and do their job even better. This will especially help if you’re looking for fluffier pancakes.
4. Heat a griddle or other smooth-surfaced pan on your stove. We like to do medium/low heat to avoid browning the pancakes. “Low and slow”. Melt a little butter to grease your griddle and/or pan.
5. Spoon pancake mixture to your desired size. We usually do about a quarter cup size, max. Add your toppings now if you’re using them.
6. Cook the pancakes and keep watch for small bubbles starting to come up through the surface, and for the edges to look a little dry. It’s time to flip them!
7. Cook on the other side for another minute or two. All pancakes will come out just a little different, so don’t worry about perfection. Cook for a little longer or increase the heat if you want golden brown pancakes. You’ll get a feel for what you like.
Sit down, make a tower of pancakes and enjoy.
