Cooking with the Shaws - Favorite Pancakes

I love pancakes for breakfast…or lunch…or supper… I just love pancakes. A friend of mine and I would drive all the way to Tupelo when we were in college just to eat IHOP for lunch. Tupelo was an hour from Mississippi State (I’m sure it’s still an hour…) and it was the nearest down with an IHOP. We had a Waffle House, but waffles just aren’t the same. And gas was cheap back then. Now it would hardly be worth it. I haven’t eaten at an IHOP in years….probably since college. Just typing this is really making me want to go to IHOP and get some pancakes to eat with their 4 different syrups. YUM! Anyway, I attribute my love of pancakes to my mom who always made such wonderful pancakes when I was growing up. We had them often on Saturday or Sunday mornings. I have been making her recipe for years. Sure, you could go the whole “Bisquik” route to make pancakes, but they won’t hold a candle to these.

Favorite Pancakes (pg 111)

1 egg

1 ¼ c buttermilk

½ tsp baking soda

1 ¼ c sifted flour (confession…I never sift my flour for this….it’s usually too early in the morning to bother with sifting stuff)

1 tsp sugar

2 Tbsp soft margarine

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

Mix egg, buttermilk, and soda; beat well.

Mix in flour.

Add remaining ingredients and mix with electric mixer until smooth (another confession…I never use an electric mixer….I rock out with a whisk)

Cook on hot griddle.

I love this batter. It gets all fizzy (for lack of a better word) and bubbly while it sits. It’s like it has attitude. It’s also a nice thin batter that’s easy to control on the griddle. It cooks super fast though…so don’t walk away from the griddle…or you will have pancakes Louisiana style (that’s blackened).

I served these with a strawberry sauce that I made with some strawberries that were just about to be rotten (I hate wasting food). I often have strawberries in this situation and created this sauce to make them edible.

I cut the strawberries up and add a Tbsp or 2 of sugar and a dash of amaretto (mainly because I’m tired of looking at that bottle of amaretto on my fridge so I dump it in lots of things). I let this sit in the fridge overnight.