Pancakes... yes... the best way to begin a weekend... well, unless you get to sleep in... but not with small children... then it's pancakes... but, I digress...
These are the ingredients you'll need, although you should add butter to this too... I just forgot to put it in the picture.
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
4 tbsp. butter
2 c. milk (maybe just a little less)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
Melt the butter in a ceramic (or otherwise microwavable bowl) that you will be mixing in. Don't overdo it... better to have a little solid (but soft) butter than boiled butter. I'm going against convention here... but then I add the dry ingredients. Honestly, it's just that I don't want to melt the butter in something else that I have to clean later... it's just how I roll around here... less is more. But, I digress again...
Put in the dry ingredients, mix them together a bit with a fork (that's important for mixing in the cinnamon, otherwise it clumps up). Once you have the dry stuff in, you can throw the wet stuff in the bowl, ending with the milk. I stir with the fork as I mix, so that you aren't trying to mix a lake with the desert... that doesn't work so well.
Point being... you finish with a somewhat thin batter. And now here's one of the REALLY IMPORTANT things about making good pancakes, you have to let the batter sit for about 10 minutes. The above picture is terrible, but the point is that you need to wait until it starts to look like it's rising... see the bumps around the spoon? It's subtle, so you could also use the 10 minute rule.
And here's another really bad picture to prove a point... you also need to preheat the pan. For many years I ignored this really key part of making pancakes. The first ones were always ugly and slightly gross... they don't really cook right unless you start with a hot pan. I blame the terrible light in my kitchen for the state of the pictures of actually cooking the pancakes...
Another really bad picture to prove a point... one thing about pancakes is that you can't flip them over a hundred times while they're cooking. They need to cook fully on each side. If you flip back to further cook the undercooked first side (follow me? I'm better at making pancakes than I am at communicating... hence I'm a biologist... not a journalist... digression... damn), they will get rubbery.
In the above picture you can see how to know when they're ready to flip. The edges get bubbles that will break and leave small holes (this process is leaving the inside of the pancake fluffy). You can also see that the edge is starting to look dry. It's time to turn them... this dryness of the pancake says "flip me over" the way my car's gas warning light tells me to get to the gas station with NO delay. So, think of this as your red flashing light to get the fluffy yummy baby flipped!
And then you have these... beautifully cooked pancakes (the mouse ones are for the kids... and I just noticed that one of the mice has some nasty tumor on her head... *eeegh*).
And then you eat them and enjoy them. Which, if you have small children translates into "feed the kids first then sit down and eat quietly while they play". If you choose this option (which we do) then you can keep the pancakes warm in a lightly warmed oven (I use 170 degrees because that's as low as my oven goes). The pancakes lose a little of their "fluff" this way, but they're still yummy. And, I figure when the kids are teenagers and they are sleeping until noon then I'll get to eat first and they can eat the flat ones... ha!
Oh, and if you like a sweet/salty thing, you can try my way of eating these wonderful flapjacks... with peanut butter and syrup. It's one way to get a whole day's worth of calories into one meal, and to make you feel nice and full and satiated on a lazy Saturday morning, and to (apparently) gross out your entire family. I'm telling you though, I'm an expert at pancakes and anyone who does not try the peanut butter thing is MISSING OUT!
Mmmmm.......
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