Multigrain pancakes and making buttermilk pancakes with a twist

The topic of pancakes comes up quite often here, and frankly, I'm at it again!  There are a million variations to everything and I'm happy to try as much as humanly possible when it comes to food. That goes for pancakes and other things.  The way I look at it, it's a good thing we eat so often!

For today's "pancake talk", let's chat about two things...

Multigrain Pancakes

Let's start with these multigrain pancakes, a recipe that caught my eye in the latest issue of Cooking Light.  I'm reluctant to label things with titles like "healthy" or not (to my way of thinking, use common sense and enjoy everything in moderation) but it's more than fair to say these are a terrific, feel-good, option when it comes to pancakes.  It's made with both old-fashioned oats as well as white whole wheat flour.

The only unusual step in making these pancakes is first soaking old-fashioned rolled oats in buttermilk for about 10 minutes before proceeding with the recipe.  This gives the oats a chance to soften and bloom slightly (very smart).  The process is easy enough but I was a little skeptical about how these would turn out...would they actually taste good because not only are we using oats and whole wheat flour, there's no butter/oil in the batter and just a tablespoon of maple syrup to sweeten the batch.

Well, my family and I were very pleasantly surprised.  Somehow, these pancakes turned out creamy in the center (thanks to the soaking process, according to Cooking Light).  Soft and fluffy, they were perfectly tasty.  They might not be very rich in flavor on their own but paired with some fresh berries and/or bit of maple syrup, it is a very well-balanced pancake breakfast!  You can also follow Cooking Light's cue of making a nut butter sauce to go with these (more on that later...) for a fantastic, healthy pairing.  

My son finished his 3 pancakes in no time and I was impressed with how much he liked them.  These pancakes are both kid- and adult-approved!

Making buttermilk pancakes, with a twist

Now for this second segment of our pancake talk, I didn't try a new recipe per se...I tried a new technique.

I recently read this article from Food52 about a genius tip on how to make fluffier buttermilk pancakes.  I'll cut straight to the chase and tell you the "trick"...you know how you separate an egg and beat the egg white to fold into a pancake/waffle batter to make an extra fluffy result?  Well, this tip suggests you put the whisk down and skip the whipping, and simply stir in the egg white at the end of making the batter.   

I don't know about you but I don't often take the extra step of whipping egg whites when I make pancakes because it's extra work and cleanup.  This idea of stirring in the egg white without whipping sounded like a perfectly easy twist to try, so I did. Instead of using the recipe provided, I took a basic buttermilk pancake recipe I often use at home and simply followed the technique of separating the egg and reserving the white to stir into the batter at the very end.  

I had some blueberries on hand so I made blueberry buttermilk pancakes.  I'm afraid I didn't go so far as to do a side-by-side comparison to show you (you can see a comparison at Food52) but I can tell you that we had a very fluffy batch of pancakes using this egg white technique.  My husband definitely thought they were fluffier than usual.  I don't know if it's positive thinking on my part but I also thought they were fluffier than the norm.  It sure doesn't hurt to give it a try so the next time you make pancakes, consider making them with this little twist and see what you think (I'd love to know)! 

In conclusion, all these fantastic pancake recipes and cooking techniques give us more reasons to enjoy pancakes for breakfast.  That's a very good thing!

Diner-style buttermilk pancakes

Since I'm still waffling about whether or not I should buy a waffle maker, I keep busy flipping pancakes on the weekends!  Truth be told, it's a good crisp waffle that I crave more often than pancakes but because my son and husband enjoy pancakes so much, I make them all the time (as you might have noticed).

In the last few years that I started making pancakes at home (from scratch, because, yes...I once used boxed pancake mix), I have discovered some delicious recipes and I make most of them very often.  It dawned on me recently that I don't have a basic buttermilk pancake recipe.  

The buttermilk pancakes I do make are Gwyneth Paltrow's overnight recipe; honestly, those babies are so delicious that I didn't really feel the need for another buttermilk pancake recipe but they are quite different from your typical diner-style buttermilk pancakes.  Whereas the diner ones are your fluffy, relatively mild-tasting flapjacks, the overnight recipe makes relatively thin, super-soft, ultra-tender and tangy pancakes.  The overnight sitting is pretty much a necessity and I like the idea of having a simpler, more familiar buttermilk pancake recipe in my repertoire.

Well, mission accomplished.  I spotted this diner-style buttermilk pancake recipe from the latest issue of Food Network Magazine.  I was particularly intrigued by the idea of adding a little baking soda in the pancakes to help with even browning.  I do have to say, even after making these, that I'm pretty convinced that the evenly browned pancakes we get from our diner comes from a well buttered griddle more than anything else (I use a little cooking spray). So while my homemade buttermilk pancakes didn't look exactly like the ones I get at our local diners, they were fluffy, moist, and tender, with a familiarly milder buttermilk flavor that we recognize.

I'm happy to have this easy, tasty recipe for buttermilk pancakes that I can whip up very quickly for breakfast.  Since I always find myself with extra buttermilk whenever I do buy it for a recipe, I know it'll come in handy.

Super soft buttermilk pancakes

I have a confession to make.  When I make pancakes, I always use a box mix.  The kind where you just add water.  What can I say...it's convenient and tastes fairly good (it's really about the maple syrup anyway, right?).  For a long time, I used a mix from William Sonoma that produced these nice crepe-like pancakes that we love but the downside is it's pricey and there's the obvious negatives with any packaged mix.  So the other day, I had some extra buttermilk in the fridge after making our favorite chocolate cake.  Do you ever wonder why buttermilk only comes in 1-quart containers when you usually only need about a cup?  I'm always looking for ways to use some of it up when I have it around and this time I thought I'd try making some buttermilk pancakes.

I think I might be just a little bit addicted to these pancakes.  They are oh so incredibly soft and tender.  It's definitely not all about the maple syrup after all though a little bit on top is very nice indeed.  These pancakes have quite a bit of tang because of the buttermilk so you have to like that and I find myself liking it more and more.  The texture is really lovely...super soft and just melts in your mouth.