Pancakes and Pancakes and Pancakes (Oh, My!)
We have now had Grandma’s Pancakes five more times, all by request. It’s a joy to make something new from the cookbook that my family loves. All home cooks make things that disappoint their diners at some point, of course, perhaps because of the flavor, balance of spices, mistakes that lead to a spoiled dish, or even just using ingredients the diners do not like. Whatever the reason, it’s so dispiriting to put your resources—time, energy, and ingredients—into creating a meal, only to see the others at the table eating just their salad and bread, pushing the new dish around with their forks. It’s especially dispiriting if it happens at dinner, when the cook realizes there’s not much else to do to rectify a failed dish at that late hour.
So it’s been gratifying to have such enthusiastic familial investment in a recipe from my project.
As avid pancake fans, we like to have some fun on these weekend mornings—using food coloring, sculpting animal faces (we’re a koala house, and their big noses are fun to sculpt), and making homemade whipped cream to use as a topping with berries (and in our coffee and hot chocolate too). So our second iteration of Grandma’s Pancakes involved the addition of green food coloring, a change in appearance but not flavor profile.
One of the most amazing features of this recipe is the way the pancakes rise. These are not flat discs, better used as frisbees. Rather, they are thick, steaming cakes. Their heft is so visible in green.
Two weeks later, Grandma’s Pancakes appeared again in a combination of green and blue.
And later, we returned to the classic color scheme but added vibrancy with strawberry topping and homemade syrup.
After making this recipe six times, I can continue to recommend it. The sour cream and buttermilk create tanginess and creaminess, and by continuing to whisk it only until mixed, I avoid the graininess of many pancakes I’ve tasted in the past. Every time we’ve made it, I’ve added more buttermilk to create a pourable batter, and one time I only had a quarter cup of sour cream, and so I added an additional quarter cup of buttermilk in its place. This substitution of types of sour ingredients did not make a difference in the taste. I also continue to support adding a splash of vanilla extract.
The recipe is a great size, making a manageable batch—about eighteen pancakes, four inches in diameter. If I use all the batter, I will find the first pancakes still warm when I sit down to eat. We pack these up and reheat them during the week for our daughter’s breakfasts.
I imagine I’ll make it again this coming Sunday morning, this time with a festive fall pumpkin theme.
This post is part of an ongoing series in which I make and reflect on recipes and the people who contributed them to the 1985 Oak Valley Lutheran Church compiled cookbook, The Joy of Sharing.
