Pancakes

Starting with a basic starch you can add lots of variety to a simple pancake mix.  Uncle Buck loves the  The Dutch Pannekoek House ; they make awesome muesli-inspired pancakes.  A meal in itself.  While Aunt Sue prefers real maple syrup on her pancakes, Uncle Buck has also been known to use honey, corn syrup or brown sugar and butter and cinnamon.
Here is a basic pancake mix that serves 2-4 

2 tablespoons melted butter or shortening
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking power
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 beaten egg

Possible variations on this recipe:

Add vanilla to the batter for a richer flavor
Add raisins and cinnamon
Add blueberries, strawberries, raspberries,
Add bananas and cinnamon  (mash 1 cup of bananas and add cinnamon, reduce slightly the amount of milk and cook a bit extra to make sure bananas are cooked through)
Double recipe and use 1/2 flour and 1/2 Alpen brand cereal or prepared muesli.
Dust with icing sugar before serving for a presentation that pops
Garnish with fresh or stewed fruit 
Add 1/4 cup dried coconut 

Cooking and serving pancakes is a skill and an art that requires practice and patience:
Make sure your batter is at the right consistency.  The more "wattery" the batter, the thinner the pancake; on average.  If your batter is too thick add some more milk to thin it out.  Want thin crepes?  Use a runny batter.  Thick, Tollhouse style is more to your liking?  Mix and then let rise a bit before cooking.
Remember you probably will not be able to serve everyone at once.  Remember the principle of "carry-over cooking" and undercook your bacon or sausages and keep them in the stove; then cook the pancakes; keeping the first 1 or 2 batches and keep in the stove; then serving the table on the 3rd round.  
Your batter will rise between courses.  Since there is baking soda in the batter and it's close to the stove your batter may get thicker as you cook.  After each round of cooking check your batter; you may have to mix and add more milk to get the consistency you desire.
Make sure the pan and oil is hot before adding the batter.  Add a drop of water to see if it spits; if yes; you are good to go...
Cook on relatively high heat; you want to "toast" the batter
Be patient.  Wait until you see the bubbles on the bottom of the pancake and they are all the way around the outside before flipping.  A common mistake is too flip too soon; hopefully you want to flip it once and once only; make sure it's well toasted on one side; otherwise it will be spongy in the center.
Let go of my Eggo!!!  Pancakes freeze quite well and heat up well in the toaster, believe it or not...
Blue pancakes???  If you want your blueberry pancakes to look nice and not all blue try making sure they are well drained and TOSS THEM IN ICING SUGAR BEFORE ADDING TO THE BATTER, folding them in batch by batch before cooking.  The sugar coats the berries and integrates them nicely into the batter, keeping the berry coated and isolated.   Or use dried blueberries/cranberries.  

Suggest serving with HoneyHam, Bacon or Sausage and Fresh Fruits.

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                         This recipie was found at Uncle Bucks Recipie HomePage
                               http://www.askauntsue.com/r/Default.htm            


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