Buttermilk Pancakes (2)

I thought it was time to update my buttermilk pancake recipe. It's 4+ years old and the food photography is *thumbs down* and I've since tweaked the recipe a bit. I was inspired to redo the recipe because my sister received some Vermont maple sugar from her boss as a gift and though her thoughts automatically went to making some maple candied bacon, mine went to pancakes. It's not like we couldn't compromise though; we made both.

Ingredients [serves 4]:
1¼ cups flour
1½ tablespoon maple sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup melted butter
1 egg
1¼ cups buttermilk
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Start by stirring together the dry ingredients: the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Grab another bowl and combine the wet ingredients. To make it easier for the ingredients to come together, I like to stir the vanilla into the buttermilk and in a separate container, I whisk the melted (and cooled) butter with the egg. Mixing the butter in with the egg helps to make sure that the fat easily emulsifies. Then, add the buttermilk into the buttery egg mixture.

Slowly drizzle the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, whisking gently. Whisk just until the batter forms; lumps are okay.

Heat a griddle over medium and once it's hot, drop on the pancake batter. The batter should be really bubbly and airy and the pancakes should poof up nicely on the griddle. This is by far the fluffiest pancake batter I've ever made.

Cook the pancakes for two to three minutes, until golden brown. You'll know they're ready to flip when bubbles start forming in the center. Flip and cook for another minute or two until the second side is just as golden as the first. By the way, the trick to golden brown pancakes that look like diner pancakes is to not put any fat on the griddle. Just cook them directly on the griddle (as long as it's a well-seasoned griddle, it should be non-stick).

To accompany our pancakes, I also made the maple bacon that my sister was craving. I just grabbed a few slices of really thick cut bacon, laid them on a rack on top of a lined sheet pan, and sprinkled them with the maple sugar. Then I popped the whole thing in a 400F oven for 15 minutes, until the bacon was crisp.

I served everything on a big plate and I even went so far as to pre-butter and pre-syrup the pancakes because I thought it looked nice and extra delicious, but also because I wanted to give the butter a chance to melt on the hot-off-the-griddle pancakes.

These pancakes are so fluffy and perfect. This batter is also v. welcoming; it welcomes chocolate chips, berries, Nutella... there are loads of possibilities.

Here's the recipe page: