Speaking of pancakes...
No?
Wait.
We weren't just talking about pancakes?
Oh. I guess that was just in my head.
I seem to do that a lot these days — "that" being pretty much anything, and "do" being pretty much nothing because I'm not doing anything if it's all in my head.
I comment on facebook in my head. I respond to texts in my head. I return phone calls...
Well, no. Never. I never return phone calls, in my head or otherwise, because I'm not a phone person. I hate talking on the phone. If you try to call me I'll just ignore you, and probably start resenting you for putting me in that position to begin with.
But I do @ your tweets in my head! I reply to your emails in my head!
(Oooh hey. Sorry I haven't emailed you back! I thought I did. Because I did. But it was, um, in my head and...oh! Right. I guess you can't read the emails I write in my head.)
And I guess I have entire conversations about pancakes with you...in my head.
I do a lot of stuff in my head.
Which is basically my reality these days.
It's what happens when you work from home. When you work by yourself in a little office. When you almost never leave the home/office because you can do everything via email, twitter and chat. When you can go — and I have, oh yes I have — when you can go 36 successive hours without ever actually speaking, out loud, out live, to anyone, because you work from home in a little office, that you never have to leave.
You start living inside your head.
And that's a dangerous thing.
Because it's fucking crazy in there.
Anyway.
So I guess we weren't speaking of pancakes.
We weren't speaking of pancakes, which means we weren't talking about FPS, or First Pancake Syndrome (for the layperson). No matter what, no matter how many million times you've made pancakes, no matter how pro-chef-ionally trained you are, no matter how precise you get the temperature on the pan, no matter, no matter, no matter...the first pancake from a batch is always bad. We totally didn't have a deep, philosophical discussion about first pancakes, second pancakes and how first-born daughters always seem to turn out an embarrassment to their Korean immigrant parents.
We weren't speaking of pancakes, which means we weren't talking about how pancakes are the quintessential Group Food. Or maybe it's "pancakes is a group food," since "pancakes" by itself is a single thing, not really a plural form of the single "pancake," because there's no such thing as one pancake, except in the case of the First Pancake, which we've already decided isn't a pancake so much as it is a metaphor for birth order personalities. Pancakes is/are a Group Food because you never go to all the trouble of making pancakes for breakfast for just yourself. When it's just you, by yourself, in your coke-bottle-thick lensed glasses and shredded flannel pajamas eating breakfast at 2:15 in the afternoon, you eat a raw Pop Tart. Pancakes have increasing marginal returns, which means you never make just one pancake. You make a stack of pancakes. You make stacks and stacks. The more you make, the less effort it was overall to make.
Wow. I never fully understood this economic concept until now.
We weren't speaking of pancakes, which means we weren't talking about how because they're a group food, you never make pancakes-for-one, and if you're me, even though two is technically a group, you never make pancakes-for-two, either because the last time I made pancakes-for-two was pretty much the last time I will ever make pancakes-for-two. Because an ex once told me that pancakes from a box are fluffier than any from-scratch pancake anyone (i.e. "you," i.e. me) can make.
I was scarred for life. No more pancakes for boys.
Never.
So, where were we again?
Oh, right.
Perfectly Easy Pancakes
This is a recipe for easy, basic pancakes made with baking powder and plain milk.
servings totally depends on how big you make the pancakes
Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk (at least 2%, whole milk even better, buttermilk best)
1 tablespoon superfine sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 large egg
butter for cooking
Directions
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together milk and sugar until sugar dissolves. Whisk in melted butter and egg.
Fold dry ingredients into milk mixture until just moistened.
Heat a large non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat. Melt a pat of butter.
Spoon about 2 tablespoons of pancake batter onto melted butter, using spoon to spread batter into circle. Cook until surface of pancake is covered with bubbles and edges appear dry, about 1 minute. Flip pancake with a thin spatula, and cook until lightly golden brown on the bottom, about 30 seconds. (The pancake does most of its cooking on the first side.)
This was your first pancake. It wont be good. Toss it, or just eat it yourself in private.
Wipe the skillet or griddle down with a damp paper towel (to pick up any pancakes bits), then melt a small amount of butter to cook the rest of the pancakes in the same way as above, always wiping down the griddle between batches.
You can keep pancakes warm in a preheated 200ºF oven while you're cooking.
my fudo says
simple and delicious. Perfect for a lazy sunday.
Katie Newell says
You had me at Gjelina. That was our hands down favorite place to eat while living in Venice. :)
Anonymous says
LOVE gjelina! haven't written about it here yet, but there is a draft post waiting in the wings...!
Maitred says
I make pancakes for myself -all-the-time. I don't use a recipe, I do it by "feel". I know I need an egg or two, some oil (yesterday I used hazelnut oil -OMG-fab cakes!) I add some yogurt, milk, some form of sugar--then maybe a couple of kinds of grain - ap flour, buckwheat flour, oats - maybe some cornmeal--and some baking soda-voila--Mostly, I like thinner cakes - but I LOVe them all. Sometimes, nuts go in the pan to toast before pouring on the batter -sometimes fruit -- Ok, get the picture? I could be in your fucking crazy head talking pancakes FOREVER!! -- thanks for listening-even if you quit 3 run-on sentences ago!!!
am
Maitred says
Oops, I meant baking powder!!!
Yutjangsah says
As a koh-rheann woman, u eat 1st pancake w weird bubbly ass ok? Man eat 2nd pancake perfect crisp n thin. U no receive korean training clearly. U disappoint me
Diana says
I thought I had already commented on this post, but I suppose I just did it in my head?
This post sums up why I love BLD's blueberry ricotta pancakes so much. I never make them for myself and hate ordering them for myself too, because nobody has any business ordering a stack of pancakes. But at BLD you can order just ONE pancake. ONE! And since it is likely the 1,000 pancake they've made that day, it is always guaranteed to be perfection.
Anonymous says
yeah, but um, isn't their ONE pancake the size of... a wagon wheel? :)