Pancakes

Pancakelife, amirite?

OK, but seriously, who doesn’t like a nice plate of pancakes with [insert whatever topping] for breakfast? Pancakes are the things that childhood memories are made of. They are the definition of Saturday morning comfort food. Pancakes can bring so much happiness to your face — they don’t have to be difficult to make.

This is my go-to, Saturday morning recipe. Now, traditionalists might scoff at what I am going to say next but hear me out. I use yeast. YES! I said it. Yeast. Baking soda and Baking powder can only get you so far. Adding just 1 tsp of activated yeast can vastly improve the girth of your little fluffers without compromising flavor and taste. If you haven’t gone back to google to find someone else’s recipe yet, of course you can omit the yeast and go for it with just the baking soda and powder. No hard feelings. If you do this I would recommend adding a tbsp of vinegar to your milk (or use buttermilk) to allow for maximum CO2 production!

Before we get into the recipe, lets get some explain some of the code.

function activateYeast();

We will be using 2 and 1/4 cups of milk in this recipe. Taking the time to heat the milk, combine the sugar and yeast, will payoff in the end. Take a thermometor (i’m using a meat thermometor) and place it in a pot with the milk. Stir in the sugar until it disolves. The milk will be at the right temperature for the yeast at 90 – 110 F. Remove the milk from the heat, add the yeast and stir. You can pour it all into a measuring cup at this point or keep it in a pot, just make sure you are not adding more heat. After about 5-10 minutes, the yeast should begin to foam at the top and is ready to go.

function siftWell($dryIngredients);

The dry good need a little TLC as well. We are using flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. You want to sift this, trust me. There is nothing worse than biting down on a tasty pancake and getting a pocket of baking soda. No amount of maple syrup or blueberries can remove the scar your brain will have of that taste. Once you have sifted it all, give it a nice whisk to ensure maximum incorporation of these elements. This is especially true if you are adding flavorings like cinnamon, flavored oils etc., which is what you should do at this point unless you just want to make OG fluffy pancakes. Taking the time to properly setup your ingredients will set you up for pancake success.

The last bit of advice I have is to preheat your oven to its lowest setting with at least one cookie sheet inside. Once it hits that temperature you can turn it off and this should keep your pancakes warm until served. I now present to you, the code for the best pancakes you will ever make (until you make them again).