Pancakes fail in about five predictable ways, and every one of them has a specific cause. Work out which one is yours before you change the recipe.
They come out flat
Nine times out of ten this is dead baking powder. It loses lift after roughly 6 months in an opened tin, and there is no visual clue at all. Drop half a teaspoon into a splash of hot water: it should foam hard and immediately. A lazy fizz means buy a new tin.
The other cause is skipping the rest. Batter that hits the pan straight after mixing has not had time for the baking soda to react with the buttermilk’s acid and generate the gas bubbles that do the lifting. Ten minutes on the counter is enough, and you will see the surface go slightly domed and pocked when it is ready.
One more, less obvious: batter that is too thin spreads before it can rise. It should fall off the spoon in thick ribbons that sit on the surface for a second or two before sinking back in.
The middle is still raw
Pan too hot. This is nearly always it.
A pancake needs about 2 to 3 minutes on the first side to set through 1cm of batter. If the underside is dark brown at 60 seconds, the outside is finishing four times faster than the inside can, and no amount of extra time on the second side fixes a middle that is already sealed in.
Medium, and only medium. On my gas hob that is a notch below halfway. Test it with a few drops of water: they should sizzle and skate for a couple of seconds, not vanish instantly and not sit there quietly. If your first pancake browns too fast, take the pan off the heat for a full minute before pouring the next one rather than just turning the dial down, because a heavy pan takes ages to actually cool.
They’re pale and blotchy
Two causes, and they pull in opposite directions.
Too much fat in the pan gives you patchy fried-looking spots and pale gaps between them. You want the thinnest possible film. I wipe the pan with a folded piece of kitchen paper dipped in oil between every batch, which sounds fussy and takes four seconds.
Not enough sugar gives you an evenly pale pancake no matter how long you cook it. The 2 tablespoons in this recipe are not really for sweetness, they are there to brown. I once cut them out for someone avoiding sugar and got a stack the colour of wet cardboard that tasted fine and looked awful.
They’re tough and chewy
Overmixing. Flour plus liquid plus agitation builds gluten, and gluten in a pancake means a texture closer to a crumpet.
Fold with a spatula, about 12 to 15 strokes, and stop while you can still see faint streaks of dry flour and a scattering of lumps the size of peas. It will look underdone and wrong. Those lumps hydrate during the 10-minute rest and disappear on the griddle.
A whisk makes this harder to get right than a spatula does, because a whisk is designed to do the exact thing you are trying to avoid.
The first one is always bad
It is, and it is not your fault. The pan has not settled into an even temperature and the fat film has not distributed. Every cook I know sacrifices pancake number one. Eat it standing up over the sink and move on.
Now the recipe itself: 10 minutes of mixing, about 15 at the griddle, roughly 12 pancakes to feed 4.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and levelled
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
- 2 cups buttermilk, well shaken
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Butter or neutral oil, for the pan
- Maple butter: 4 tablespoons softened butter whipped with 1/4 cup warm maple syrup
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl for about 20 seconds, so the leaveners are spread evenly rather than sitting in pockets.
- In a second bowl whisk the buttermilk, eggs, melted butter and vanilla until smooth. Let the melted butter cool for a minute first, or it will cook threads of egg white on contact.
- Pour the wet into the dry and fold with a spatula for 12 to 15 strokes. Stop while faint flour streaks and pea-sized lumps are still visible.
- Rest the batter 5 to 10 minutes. It will thicken and the surface will look slightly bubbled and domed.
- Meanwhile whip the softened butter with the warm maple syrup for about a minute, until pale and spreadable. Warm syrup is the point here: cold syrup will not emulsify into cold butter and you get a split, weeping mess.
- Heat a nonstick skillet or griddle over medium and wipe it with the thinnest film of fat. Water drops should sizzle and skate for a second or two.
- Pour about 1/4 cup per pancake, leaving 3cm between them. Cook undisturbed for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles have risen and popped across the whole surface and the outer 5mm of edge looks dry and matte.
- Flip once. Cook the second side 1 to 2 minutes. Do not press down; that pushes out the gas you spent 10 minutes generating.
- Hold finished pancakes in a single layer on a rack set over a baking sheet in a 200°F oven. Stacking them on a plate traps steam and the bottom two go soggy.
If you have no buttermilk
Stir 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or white vinegar into 2 cups of whole milk and leave it 10 minutes until it looks slightly curdled. It works, and it is what I use most weekends, but be honest about the difference: the tang is thinner and the crumb is a shade less tender, because real buttermilk brings thickness as well as acid. Plain yoghurt let down with a little milk to a pourable consistency is closer.
Blueberries, chocolate chips and sliced banana all go on after the batter is in the pan, scattered over the wet surface. Fold them into the bowl instead and they sink, stick, and burn on the griddle.
What freezes and what doesn’t
The pancakes freeze genuinely well, which is the best reason to make a double batch. Cool them flat on a rack first, stack with parchment squares between, and freeze up to 2 months. They go straight from the freezer into a toaster on a medium setting and come out with better edges than they had on day one.
The maple butter does not freeze. It splits on thawing and never comes back together. Keep it in the fridge for up to a week and take it out 20 minutes before you serve, because straight from the fridge it tears the top pancake instead of melting into it.