Perfect Pancakes

One of favorite thing to have for breakfast is pancakes. We make pancakes of all varieties, sourdough, whole grain, buttermilk, Swedish, from a box, etc. Between Dan and I, we've tried just about every recipe that we have in our file and cookbooks for pancakes. Yesterday, I tried a recipe that we've made in the past, but we didn't have our own buttermilk....So, I improvised.

Perfect Pancakes
about 16 4-inch pancakes

2 cups flour
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
2 eggs
3 cups buttermilk**
4 tbsp butter, melted
additional butter for griddle

Heat griddle on stovetop at medium....I'm a very impatient cook and tend to turn the stove up too high. I set the stove one notch above medium, but NEVER go higher than that.
Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar together in a medium bowl. In a large measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk and egg.
Add the buttermilk mixture and the melted butter to the flour mixture and gently combine. Don't overmix. This has a lot of liquid, so it is a thinner batter, but don't overmix to get rid of the lumps. Lumps are key to great pancakes!
Put 1/2 tsp butter on the griddle and wipe with paper towel to coat the griddle.
Drop the batter by 1/4 cup measuring spoon onto the griddle. Let it cook for abotu 2 minutes, until it has lots of bubbles covering the cake. Gently turn over. The top should be a nice golden brown. Adjust cooking time accordingly. Cook on the second side for another minute. Remove to a platter and keep warm in your own set to warm setting.
You can drop blueberries onto the batter before turning, don't mix into the batter or it will turn blue....We have also tried thin sliced pears on the griddle and then pour the pancake batter on top of that. Delicious!
**we don't always have buttermilk on hand. this recipe works great by combining 3 cups of milk (really should be at least 1%) and add 3 tbsp of cider vinegar, stir and let it rest for a few minutes. Add to the recipe as directed.

These pancakes are so good. I love buttermilk pancakes, but am not a fan of ones that turn out to be 1/2 thick because the batter is so thick. This batter is thin and light. So delicious!

Also, it makes more than we need. So, I put the extra cakes on a cooling rack and freeze them in a single layer. When frozen, put them in a zipper freezer bag for a quick breakfast. They can be microwaved or put into the toaster (our preference).

I saw a new recipe for pancakes that we really want to try, it's for a dry pancake mix to store in the freezer and just use as needed. It sounds GREAT.