pan·cake [pan-keyk] a thin, flat cake of batter fried on both sides on a griddle or in a frying pan; griddlecake or flapjack….

…or in my definition, a delicious staple of the Olsen breakfast diet. Growing up, I don’t think there was a breakfast food that we ate more often. And my mother, bless her heart, would always make them from scratch. It seemed as though store bought pancake mix was considered something of a demon spawn. My mum’s dedication to homemade pancakes tuned me into something of a pancake snob. Sure the store mix is ok in a pinch, but if you really want a great breakfast, you have got to start from scratch.

After growing older…not necessarily more mature…for some reason I stopped eating pancakes. Perhaps it was me foolishly casting of the shadow of my youth. Or more likely I just got lazy and fell in the cereal and milk trap. So in recent years I rediscovered my love of pancakes. Sadly, I had lost the touch to make a good cake. And given my stubborn nature I was not about to call home and ask for the recipe. So my wife suffered through many a sad pancake while I worked to perfect the recipe.

Happily I can report, that after much trial and error, I found a recipe that works for us. So without further ado, here is key to my breakfast heart.

P.S. this recipe usually serves two. If you scale up you don’t necessarily really need to double the sweetener, baking soda, baking powder, eggs, or vanilla  

 Basic Pancakes

1 cup flour

1 heaping teaspoon of Stevia [stevia is a natural sweetener. You can use sugar or even cut this ingredient out all together]

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

Dash of salt

Place all dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together. I like to use a whisk to ensure a good sifting.

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1 cup buttermilk [regular milk also works. I have tried Soy and Almond milk as well. If you use these cut out the sweetener]

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract [if you can afford Madagascar vanilla go for that…if you are like me any regular vanilla extract will work]

Place all wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Mix together well. This is key! The egg really needs to be beaten into submission.

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Pour egg/milk/vanilla mixture into flour mix. Gently mix together until combined. Don’t get to mix happy. Mixing to much will hurt the end product. And we don’t like hurting pancakes.

Cook as you normally would. For a little razzle dazzle add some thinly sliced fruit just after you poured it onto your griddle. My favorite? Bananas!

Once cooked slather with real butter not that silly margin stuff and drizzle with real maple syrup. Again, avoid the fake syrup as much as possible. [Do you sense a theme?]

For the ultimate breakfast serve with scrambled eggs, sausage or bacon, and fresh squeezed orange juice. Truly this is a breakfast fit for the gods.

Kristian