Gothamist: Gothamist Cooks (Kind of) By the Book: Best Buttermilk Pancakes

Joe

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:27:42 -0500

replace a bit of the buttermilk with heavy cream and your pancakes will be uberfluffy. The idea of coating a cooking surface with melted butter using a pastry brush is way too twee. Just drop a hunk of butter onto the hot frying pan. You're good to go when the butter is melted.

Cheng-Jih Chen

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 13:22:41 -0500

Yeah, beating/mixing too much may form gluten, which will make the pancakes bready, which isn't good. On the other hand, their recipe calls for low-gluten cake flour, so gluten formation is probably lessened. I use AP flour, so, like you, I mix everything sparingly. I also tend to use the batter quickly, as I feel that the baking soda and buttermilk/yogurt is reacting on contact, and I shouldn't waste all those CO2 bubbles by letting the batter sit around. I could be wrong, though.

EQB

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:51:38 -0500

I've always done the mixing slightly differently. First combine all of the wet ingredients (melted butter, buttermilk, etc) and separately sift together the dry ingredients (sifting a couple times helps too). Then, add the wet to the dry and with a large spoon, mix together in just a few quick strokes -- literally just two or three. The batter should be quite lumpy. This is how The Joy Of Cooking says to do it at least, and it makes for very light pancakes :-) --e--

Cheng-Jih Chen

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:16:47 -0500

One substitution is to use plain yogurt instead of buttermilk. I'm more likely to keep yogurt in the fridge than a quart of buttermilk, mainly because I find yogurt to be more versatile.