How to Make Buttermilk Pancakes

We bake pancakes in our house weekly. Most of the time, I substitute spelled or whole wheat flour for half the all-purpose flour and top our pancakes with fruit. But sometimes it’s nice to go with classic buttermilk pancakes.

For this recipe, I wanted to make fluffy, light and airy buttermilk pancakes with crispy edges and a slightly sweet, buttery flavor. Forty pancakes later, I’m pleased with my results: I’ve finally figured out how to avoid the common pitfalls of dense, chewy, eggy, or gummy pancakes.

Video: How to make buttermilk pancakes

The Role of Buttermilk

Some buttermilk pancake recipes call for a combination of milk and buttermilk, but it’s not necessary to use both. To simplify the recipe, I used only buttermilk. Here’s why:

• It adds a subtle flavor to baked goods like these pancakes.
• It provides the acid needed to react with the baking soda in the pancake batter. This reaction creates carbon dioxide gas, which helps the pancakes rise and gives them a tender crumb.
• Also, without the acid from the buttermilk, your baking powder can’t perform another key function: speeding up the caramelization of the sugar, giving you a darker, caramelized color on the outside of quick-bake baked goods like pancakes. Plain milk does contain some acid, but not enough to get the desired reaction from the baking soda.
• Most baking powders are dual-acting, meaning they react to both liquid and heat. The two-step process provides most of the leaven in your pancake. Buttermilk provides the liquid that the baking soda needs to dissolve and create the carbon dioxide gas that contributes to a pancake’s light, airy texture.

What to do when the buttermilk is gone? Dilute some yogurt or sour cream with some milk until it has the same consistency as buttermilk. This works just as well as buttermilk in your pancakes. In a pinch, you can also add lemon juice to your milk, although it won’t be quite the same.

Sieve the dry ingredients

Pancake recipes often call for whisking the dry ingredients together, but I prefer sifting them through a sieve or colander. I live in an area that can be humid in the summer, which can cause leavening agents like baking soda and baking soda to clump.

If you’ve ever had a slightly metallic or bitter taste in something you baked, it could be from a small dollop of baking soda or soda. Sifting eliminates this problem in a way that hitting doesn’t.

Don’t mix the batter too much

Flour contains gluten. Gluten helps structure bread and cakes. Stirring or kneading dough helps develop gluten — what you want with pasta and firm bread, but not for quick breads, muffins and pancakes. With these delicate baked goods, too much mixing can make them chewy, chewy, or rubbery.

When adding dry ingredients to wet ingredients in pancakes (and other quick breads) It is best to only stir until incorporated and not a second more. If you’re adding fruit or chocolate chips to the batter, add them when your batter still has a few pockets of dry flour.

Here’s another tip to avoid overmixing: Use a whisk or fork to thoroughly beat the egg. This makes it easier to incorporate into the dry ingredients so you don’t have to mix as much.

The best pan for making pancakes

I use a 10″ square non-stick flat griddle with 1/2″ sides to make pancakes like these, but any large skillet with low sides will work. You want to be able to easily get a spatula under the pancakes to flip them. And the lower the sides, the better.

Make sure your pan is hot!

Make sure the pan is hot enough for your butter to foam and sizzle before adding the pancake batter.

This will ensure your pancakes start cooking as soon as they hit the pan. If you add the batter too early, the pancakes will spread too much and won’t be quite as thick and fluffy.

When to add mix-ins like fruit or chocolate chips

I prefer to fold most of the fruit and chocolate chips into the batter itself rather than topping the pancake with fruit after scooping the pancake onto the pan. This way the batter will coat the fruit or chocolate and enclose it in a small pancake bubble, making them less likely to burn if flipped.

That being said, there are two exceptions to this rule – sliced ​​bananas and when cooking for large families:

• Sliced ​​Bananas are best placed on top of the pancakes after the batter has been scooped onto the pan. If you flip the pancake, the bananas will caramelize in the butter and taste even better.
• In feeding families, everyone usually wants something different. So if you spread fruit or chocolate on top, it’s easier to personalize breakfast.

How to freeze and reheat pancakes

Freeze, allow the cooked pancakes to cool to room temperature, then sandwich between sheets of parchment paper and seal in a gallon-sized zip-top bag. The parchment keeps them from sticking together after freezing, so you can remove just one or two if needed.

To warm up, spread a few frozen pancakes in a single layer on a plate (it’s ok if they overlap a bit) and microwave for about 30-45 seconds. Then put them in the toaster. The microwave defrosts them, and then the toaster finishes the job. It also ensures the crispy edges fresh off the grill.

Bonus Pancake Tips!

• No more butter? You can fry pancakes in oil and substitute oil for the butter in the recipe if you like, just make sure it’s a flavorless oil like canola.
• Would you like to avoid butter and sugar altogether? You can either eliminate the sugar or butter from this recipe and still make pancakes. The flavor won’t be as rich or sweet, the color as golden, or the texture as light, but it will still be a pancake!

More great pancake recipes to try!

• Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes
• Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
• Buckwheat pancakes
• Chocolate chip pancakes with raspberry sauce
• Oatmeal Buttermilk Pancakes