Truth. My mom cooked a hot breakfast every day of my life. Bacon and eggs with hash browns, waffles, milk toast and gravy, sausage with scrambled eggs and toast and every once in awhile she tried to pass off oatmeal as a hot breakfast. To this day I don’t know if I ever woke up to an alarm or if it was always to the smell of something delicious coming from the kitchen and the soft sounds of her working quietly so that I would get that last few minutes of sleep. It wasn’t just a grab and go breakfast either. We were called to breakfast. We had prayer and we ate together. Some of that changed as we began to get older and participate in activities that called us early to school, but I never left a dark home. No matter how early I had to be gone she was up and had something waiting for me to eat. I’ve tried to be that mom to my own children but I have to admit that I haven’t hated that my husband and children love cold cereal.
So–pancakes. She encouraged me to memorize this recipe. She was smart that way. “Remember Shanon,” she’d say, “when you don’t have time or money for a lot of other things you will always be able to feed your family pancakes.” Spoken from experience? I think so. She would be 92 this year. I miss her.
This memorized pancake recipe has come in handy on so many occasions. My own little family has lived through a few tough financial times ourselves, but I don’t think our kids ever really knew. Serving breakfast for dinner was fun to them and cheap for us. My youngest son loves big pancakes, my husband loves silver dollar (size) pancakes and I am somewhere in between–so we make all shapes and sizes. My favorite size of all? The little baby tiny one my mom would make and put on my plate. It was the size of a nickle, crisped in the butter she would use on the pan, and it reminded me that she knew me and what I loved. It was like a punctuation mark on my stack of pancakes that said, “I love you Shanon.”
Recently my son Jake found himself in Ukraine and living on a budget. He emailed me one day and asked if I would send him the pancake recipe. It’s a recipe he used on his mission, but since I hadn’t made him memorize it he gave me a call. I didn’t mind. Turns out that pancakes can save you money anywhere in the world. As I was getting ready for this post and talking to Jake about my mom’s pancake recipe he told me of a Ukrainian tradition that involves a pancake week and told me that he had passed my recipe along to a beautiful Ukranian girl. Her name is Alyona and she’s the reason that Jake was in Ukraine. Somehow it warms my heart to think that far away there’s a lovely girl making Momma’s Pancakes and that before too long she’ll be making pancakes for my son in Utah.
So–pancakes.
In a medium size bowl combine one egg, 1 1/4 cups milk, and 1/3 cup vegetable oil. Whisk together until completely combined and get the egg completely beaten.
If you want to go to all the trouble of sifting–go for it. My mom didn’t with this recipe and that is good enough for me. Add 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/3 cup sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt. If you don’t sift, sprinkle the baking powder and salt over the entire surface so it’s not all in one place.
Whisk all ingredients together, but don’t over mix. You want everything incorporated but it’s okay if there are small lumps in the batter. I counted how many strokes I made with my whisk today and I came to 50 and stopped. The batter should drizzle off of a spoon or whisk in a thick stream. Too thin and you will have crepes–delicious no doubt–but we are making pancakes. If the batter is too thick they won’t get done in the middle before burning. This is why we always do a test pancake at our house. Let the batter rest for about 5 minutes while you start to warm the syrup and get your pan ready.
Heat your favorite skillet on medium heat for about a minute. I almost always end up turning the heat down. If you are wondering if your pan is about the right temperature, drop a droplet of water on the pan and see if it sort of skitters across. Is skitters a word? If it does, add about a tablespoon of butter or cooking oil to the pan to coat the cooking surface. Sometimes I like to use a bit of extra butter because I LOVE crispy edges. Drop, spoon or pour your pancake batter onto the pre-heated pan and watch for the edges of the pancake to solidify and the bubbles that are forming in the batter to pop and remain open. This is when you flip the pancake. This is where that test pancake comes in handy… it gives you time to adjust your temperature and it usually gives my dog breakfast. 🙂 Adjust the heat and thin or thicken your batter at this point.
Turn the pancake and continue cooking until the pancake is firm and golden brown on the bottom. This is a good time to drop on a few blueberries or sliced strawberries. Go ahead and peek to see how it’s doing. See that little nickel-size pancake? I made that for myself.
Put your pancakes on a warm plate and serve them with butter and warm syrup. Oh, and if you want…memorize the recipe.
- 1¼ cups milk
- 1 egg
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup flour
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- In a medium-sized bowl combine milk, egg and vegetable oil.
- Whisk until egg is well-beaten and incorporated into the milk and oil.
- Add/sift together flour, sugar and baking powder and salt.
- Whisk just until nicely brought together, about 50 strokes.
- Let stand 5 minutes.
- Heat a skillet to medium heat.
- Drop or pour batter onto the heated skillet in the size you wish. This recipe makes about twelve ¼ cup pancakes.
- If adding blueberries or strawberries, sprinkle them on the top at this point.
- Cook on one side until bubbles form and begin to pop and hold open, checking the underside of pancake to prevent burning. Adjust heat as necessary.
- Flip the pancake and cook the other side until golden brown.
- Serve with butter and your favorite syrup.
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