Alton Brown Pancakes

Alton Brown Pancakes - made February 21, 2015 from Baked by Me

I’ve gotten so used to eating at work that weekends keep catching me off guard. Meaning I wake up on Saturdays and realize I don’t have much in the way of “real food” in my larder.  Usually I get my workout in first then fit food-gathering into my usual list of weekend errands to do. Fortunately I rarely wake up hungry so I can hold off that first meal long enough for me to exercise, shower and get to a food source before noon. I know, that sounds a little pathetic but I’ve gotten used to it.

Last Saturday, I had no compelling errands I had to run and I’d deliberately kept the day open so I could work on – ugh – my taxes. When I buckle down to all that paperwork, it’s best to have a long stretch of time to get it all done at once so I don’t confuse myself on what I’ve already captured and what I haven’t. That meant I really didn’t want to go out just to forage for food. I had enough leftovers for 1 dinner-type meal but I’ve never been a 1-meal-a-day sort of person and didn’t want to subsist on sugar the rest of the day (Really. Mostly.). So I decided this would be a good time to make honest to goodness breakfast food and have it for – you know – breakfast.

I went with this modified version of Alton Brown’s pancakes because I had all the ingredients on hand thanks to keeping my baking larder stocked. I love pancakes because they’re so easy to make and well, I just love pancakes. The trick to a good, fluffy pancake is to minimize the mixing. It’s okay to leave some lumps in the batter. They generally cook right out although you do have to break up any egregiously large flour lumps. Mix sparingly, spoon into the center of a hot frying pan or on a griddle and cook slowly. These rose high enough to guarantee fluffiness but you also want to be careful not to cook them over high heat. The outside will burn before the inside is cooked all the way through. I always see golden-colored pancakes when other people make them and blog about them but mine are more of a medium to dark brown on a good day. “Golden” ends up being raw in the middle when I take them off the heat too soon. Fortunately, it’s not hard to make good pancakes and that’s what these were – good pancakes. 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 teaspoons sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons melted butter + 2 egg yolks, whisked together
2 cups buttermilk + 2 egg whites, whisked together

1. Combine dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and stir lightly with a fork or just a few strokes with a whisk. Do not overmix.
2. Lightly spray a frying pan or griddle with nonstick cooking spray over medium-high heat. Ladle the amount of batter for the size of pancake you want and cook slowly, flipping over when edges look cooked and bubbles have formed in the middle of the pancake. Cook other side until golden to dark brown and pancake is cooked through. Serve warm with butter or syrup.