Sunday, October 18, 2009

Breakfast is Delicious

This is actually a recipe from last week, and I'm sorry to be late with it - but it's so delicious you'll forgive me.
Last week, Moose and Squirrel (my future sister-in-law and her boyfriend) came to stay with us, and I decided to throw together a slow cooker breakfast casserole and some pancakes (I had leftover buttermilk from an ill-fated cake I tried to make. I'm not posting the recipe because it was not good.)
(Breakfast casserole - I recommend putting everything in the crockpot and actually mixing it together.)
The breakfast casserole was a poor man's version of this - I only had a half a thing of hash browns, and I only used 6 or 7 eggs. And I had to use bacon, because, um, I don't know how to cook sausage. It always goes poorly. So I don't. Bacon? I can cook. I ate around the bacon in this one, and didn't have a lot anyway. Because I was focusing on the deliciousness that is the AB Pancake.
If you don't own "I'm Just Here For More food"...you might want to, but only if you have enough time to cook. I've tried making some of the stuff in it, and I'm sorry, but some of AB's recipes are just. too. complicated. This one was pretty simple. The only thing it asked of me that I couldn't give it was a food processor for sifting. I sift with a strainer, which works okay. The key to great pancakes, apparently, lies in not overstirring, and in letting the batter rest.
So here is the pancake recipe. (Make ahead version here. Which I'm sorry, will save you about 5 seconds. But if you really need that time, go for it.)
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tblsp sugar

2 L. eggs
2 cups buttermilk
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled.

Procedure:
1.) Sift dry goods together.
2.) Mix wet goods together in a separate bowl.
3.) Pour wet goods into dry goods. Mix gently. You should not make more than 5 circles around the bowl. I think AB actually wants you to stick to 3. Batter will be lumpy. Do not break up the lumps! Do make sure you have scraped all the flour off the bottom and there are no massive clumps of flour.
4.) Set the batter aside to rest for 5 minutes. This is key. I know you are hungry, but wait.
5.) Heat a frying pan to medium-low, or an electric griddle to 350.
6.) Ladle pancakes into griddle and cook until bubbles have formed. Pay attention: Some of you may be inclined to flip your pancakes when they start to bubble - but you want to wait until they look like this.

See how the edges are cooked and the batter is looking like it set? You should be cooking your pancakes for about 3 minutes on one side, so adjust the heat lower and just be patient!

I think this was the best batch of pancakes I've ever made. I'm going to try it again soon with my usual buttermilk substitute of milk + vinegar.

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