Fluffy Pancakes

I have never met a pancake that I didn’t like, though I must admit to having favorites. Boxed or bagged pancake mixes are okay in emergencies or when camping, but homemade pancakes are so easy to make and taste so much better that we seldom use mixes today. We never use a mix for buckwheat pancakes. The batter for great buckwheat pancakes must be leavened with yeast overnight. If you need persuading, try my recipe for Raised Buckwheat Pancakes Raised Buckwheat Pancakes.

While we most often breakfast on Buttermilk Whole Wheat Pancakes, when the doctor orders you to begin a low fiber diet in preparation for a colonoscopy, white pancakes go on the menu. Mrs. David A. Bontrager of Haven, Kansas, called these “Plain Pancakes,” when she contributed the recipe to Mary Emma Showalter’s Mennonite Community Cookbook, but there is nothing plain about them, especially once I began making them with some buttermilk. These fluffy cakes are worth making often because they really are fluffy and delicious. This recipe makes nine or ten cakes.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 cup buttermilk
1 T vegetable oil
2 large eggs, separated

PROCEDURE:

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt together into a mixing bowl. Stir the milk, buttermilk and oil into the dry ingredients until you have a fairly smooth batter. Separate the eggs, dropping the yolks into the batter and the whites into a one quart mixing bowl.

Use a hand mixer to beat the egg whites until you have stiff peaks. Then beat the yolks into the batter on medium speed for about a minute. Raise the speed to high and beat for another fifteen seconds or so. Stir a couple tablespoonfuls of beaten egg whites into the batter, then fold the remaining egg whites into the batter by gently tipping the batter over the egg white with a rubber spatula.
Fluffy Pancake batterThis is not difficult to do, and you can find videos and detailed tutorials online. Here is a photo of batter ready for baking. Note that you can still see a few small globs of beaten egg white in the batter.

Put third cup measures of batter onto a non-stick skillet or griddle over moderate heat (350º on an electric griddle) and cook the batter until the edges turn dry and a few bubbles appear in the center of the cakes. Turn them and cook another minute or so until they are done. Repeat and eat with butter and maple syrup.

NOTES: My mother folded beaten egg whites into various puddings and cakes, but I think that I was actually taught the procedure by my high school French teacher. She taught us how to make chocolate mousse and introduced us to avocados. I have forgotten her name but not her contribution to my culinary education. Equally important, she taught me enough French to pass the Graduate Record Exam years later when I needed certification in a second modern foreign language.

I like a fried egg or a country pork sausage patty with my pancakes. Jerri sometimes treats herself to pancakes with peanut butter, jelly or jam.

Kandy & Ginny’s Pumpkin Pie Squares

A few weeks ago I was tempted by some custardy-looking bars on the table after the first service at church. When I asked Pat, who had volunteered to host the coffee and snack table that day, she told me that they were pumpkin pie squares. I bit into a bar and was pleasantly surprised to discover that one could enjoy a piece of pumpkin pie while watching one’s diet. Pat had cut her squares into inch and a half pieces, so I assumed that each piece had only a few calories.

Since Jerri and I usually sit near the front of the sanctuary, we are nearly always among the last people to shake hands with the pastor and head to the coffee table. Looking around, I did not see anyone heading for the snacks, so I asked if I might take another of the half dozen remaining bars. I’m sure that the two bars still had a lot fewer calories than a piece of pie with whipped cream.

I was hooked by those tasty morsels and asked Pat for the recipe. “It’s in the church cookbook,” she told me. “It’s Kandy Schaffer and Ginny Hoogheem’s recipe, and we like it a lot. You must have a copy.”

So I went home, found A Little Taste of Heaven, published in 1990 by the United Methodist Women of our church, and made Pumpkin Pie Squares. Unless you hate pumpkin pie, this is a recipe you will want to add to your repertoire of desserts.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin
1 can (12 to 13 oz.) evaporated milk
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 T softened butter

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 350º and lightly grease a nine by thirteen-inch baking pan. Use a fork to mix the flour, oatmeal and brown sugar in a mixing bowl. Soften the butter and cut it into the dry ingredients. Pat this crust mixture into the bottom of the pan and bake for fifteen minutes.

While the crust is baking, beat together the pumpkin, milk, eggs, sugar, salt and spices with an electric mixer. Pour the pumpkin batter into the crust and return the pan to the oven. Bake for twenty minutes.

Stir the pecans, brown sugar and softened butter together in a small bowl. Sprinkle the nut mixture over the partially cooked pumpkin and continue baking for about thirty to thirty-five minutes or until done. Check for doneness with a table knife inserted near the center of the pan. If the knife comes out clean, the bars are done. If not, bake another five minutes and check again.

NOTE: Kandy and Ginny both died within the last few years and the list of those who contributed recipes to A Little Taste of Heaven when it was published in 1990 includes many more who have passed away. I think this little cookbook is a memorial to those women (and a few men) who cooked and loved their families, church and God. Every time we follow one of their recipes, we affirm that those who are gone are not forgotten.