Home-style, Fluffy Pancakes!

Who doesn’t love a hearty stack of those! In my considerable pancake-eating experience (in India), good pancakes are hard to come by – even at the modern cafés/bistros and 5-star breakfasts. And if you’re on the lookout for some pure maple syrup to go with all that golden goodness, you might as well give up and go back to bed (cos, hello, that’s the solution to all problems! That & chocolate.)

So what do you do when you live in a tiny town where, forget pancakes, even pancake mix doesn’t exist? Why, you make it yourself from scratch, of course! Both the perks & perils of living in a place like this are that you don’t have the indulgence of going into a store, buying a mix and being a lazy-ass cook. You’re forced to think out of the box, be inventive/ creative and in the process, realize that the stuff made at home is vastly better tasting that the store bought rubbish. What’s better, you know exactly what went into the food you’re eating. Win-win all way!

Both the husband & I love our food and thankfully for me, he’s always open to (my) experimenting and is a good sport when things, ah, don’t go as planned. This morning though, his patience was well-rewarded when he got to eat these for breakfast – home-style, super fluffy pancakes with home made syrup! (Everything’s better with Nutella, so go on, scoop in a bit of that too!)

I adapted this banana-nut pancake recipe; skipped the banana & nuts to make these old fashioned pancakes. Here’s the recipe for the syrup – we don’t get Mapleine in India, so I used pure vanilla extract instead!

Adaptation & Hacks

• Add a 1/4 cup milk more than the recipe calls for. The recipe’s batter is quite thick and would not spread well in a pan – the extra milk will make it a more pour-able consistency.
• Recommend sieving the dry ingredients twice – fluffier pancakes!
• Even if you’re in a hurry, do NOT skip resting the batter – it gives time for the baking powder to really react with the other stuff to give you light & fluffy pancakes
• Add 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence (if you’re not using a vanilla syrup) and a generous pinch of cinnamon to the batter – really takes the flavour to another level!