How To Make Outstanding Pancakes

This will make a stack of three or four 6 ½-7 inch diameter pancakes. Start with the Arrowhead Mills Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle mix. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in a second, combining at the end. Take one and a half cups of the mix. Add a small pinch of salt. Although the mix has baking powder in it, it doesn't have enough, so lightly sprinkle additional baking baking powder over the mix (think of salting a steak). Take a whole nutmeg and grate lightly over mix to taste (don't skip this step or you'll really miss out). With a spoon mix dry ingredients together. In your second bowl mix one and a half cups whole milk, one egg, and half a teaspoon of a basically flavorless oil (canola works well). Make sure the egg is thoroughly beaten into the milk. You'll now have more wet stuff than you need. Add slowly to the dry ingredients, folding together minimally — some lumps are good, no lumps are bad — until you've got a batter that's still thick but will run fairly easily off a spoon. You'll have somewhere between a third and a half cup of wet ingredients left over; just toss that. Let the batter sit a few minutes. (Note: I've tried adding a very small amount of sugar to this, but it never works as I want it to, causing the pancakes to brown too quickly and too much.)

While making the batter preheat your oven to about 200 degrees, put your plate in the oven, and preheat a heavy skillet on a medium heat burner. When the batter is ready pour a small amount of oil in the pan, swirl to coat, and pour out excess. I find it helpful to make a small test pancake, which also soaks up any further excess oil (if you have a dog this is a critically important step, from his point of view). The pan I use is not really large enough for two pancakes, but if you have a large pan and a decent stove-top, or a specialty griddle, you can do more than one at a time. Anyhow, pour slightly less than half a cup of batter into the pan. It'll take a couple minutes to cook — you're looking for two things: bubbles in the center have firmed up and there should be a relative difference in dryness between the center and the area about an inch in from around the edge. Also look for brownness just at the lower edges. Some people will lift up the edge with a spatula to look, but I think that tends to mess up the pancake's integrity, but I could be wrong. When turning, use your spatula to work around the edges and towards the middle to release the pancake from the pan; this will take half a dozen or more scraping motions (if your pancake releases from the pan with one swoop you've either got too much oil in the pan or you're using a non-stick pan, which you shouldn't be doing). Flip carefully, but quickly. (The size pancake I've described here is about the maximum size one can safely flip, any larger and it gets messy, though it can be done.) The second side will cook slightly faster than the first. Since you can't rely on bubbles on the top you'll have to go by how done the sides look, indications of browning on the lower edges and — this takes a bit of practice — smell. The pancake should smell like a cake, not like batter. Don't be afraid to stick your nose down into the pan right over the thing. Again, it'll take several scrapes with your spatula to get the pancake loose. Transfer cooked pancakes to the warm plate in the oven.

To serve, add several generous dabs of butter on the top and pour over maple syrup. I prefer maple syrup warmed up, but I think too much gets lost trying to warm it in a separate saucepan. An easier way is just to take the bottle and put it in a bath of hot water from the tap. From start to finish making pancakes this way will take a little over half an hour, depending how efficient you are. Enjoy!