Buttermilk pancakes

[Major Nikon]

I make these when my daughter's friends sleep over. Her friends have decided I make the best pancakes evah!

2 cups a/p flour
1 pint buttermilk
2 eggs
4 Tbs butter
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Cut the butter into 1/2" cubes. Make sure the butter is very cold. Warm up your griddle or skillet over medium low heat (~350 degrees). Into the food processor goes everything but the eggs and buttermilk. Give the food processor about 6 good pulses or until the butter cubes have been cut up to smaller pieces. Do not over process. Beat the eggs in a large mixing bowl, then add the buttermilk. Pour the dry ingredients onto the wet and mix until everything just comes together. The mixture will be thick and will have clumps. This is OK.

Spoon the batter into a lightly buttered pan. The batter should be thick, so you'll have to massage it into something roughly resembling a ~9" circle.

Make 6 large pancakes.

Do not double the recipe if you can help it. If you need to make more pancakes, make multiple batches once the previous batch is done. Keep the prepared pancakes in a warm oven till ready to serve.

I have two lodge cast iron round 10 1/2" griddles which I think are the perfect for this task.

[Lucinda]

1. Thank you for the recipe!

I've never made the batter in the food processor. Or made a batter with butter bits like you would for a pie crust. Very intriguing!

[Major Nikon]

2. The butter serves multiple purposes

First, it adds taste, naturally. It also develops the texture of the finished pancake. Leaving the butter in solid form allows it to retain it's moisture longer so that when it melts it will release this moisture as steam and help to rise and lighten the pancakes. There is a tradeoff here. Most pancake batters either use melted butter or oil, and the reason is because the oil coats the gluten molecules which makes the finished pancake more tender. I've found with my recipe the little extra gluten formation, along with the eggs, helps to give the pancakes a bit more firmer texture, which is a good thing in this case since the pancakes will rise a decent amount on the griddle. I've experimented with a lot of different methods. I've tried using cake flour, bread flour, beating the egg whites and folding them in, adding ricotta cheese to the batter. You name it, I've probably tried it. What I found is I can make the pancakes as light as I want, but they tend to fall apart and become very delicate. Once you add syrup, they tend to turn into mush. A little gluten formation helps with this, which is why I use a/p flour.