Cherish the Pancake

I get quite a few phone calls on Saturday mornings from grandfathers who are flipping pancakes for their grandchildren and notice that the jug of syrup is just about empty and won’t get them through another weekend. Quite regularly, local fathers drive up to the sugarhouse between 8 and 9am on Saturday mornings because they need more syrup RIGHT AWAY for their Saturday pancakes.

I grew up with the same Saturday tradition. They were no doubt Bisquick pancakes since it was the 1950’s and Mom bought all the newfangled mixes: Betty Crocker brownies and cakes, pudding mixes, jello. She sometimes baked Dump Cake. Looking it up online just now, I see that it is still popular. To make it you dump into a pan: yellow or white cake mix, canned cherries, canned pineapple, and butter or margarine. Yup, I grew up on margarine and Wonder bread. It’s a wonder I’m still alive.

Then came the 1960’s, nutrition guru Adele Davis, and whole wheat. I taught myself how to bake bread, then taught my mother. I don’t remember what happened to pancakes in those years, probably because I stopped eating in general. When I returned to food, a very good turn of events, I discovered sourdough – and sourdough pancakes. I’ve stuck to the same recipe for decades.

On Easter evening, the women among the sugarhouse dinner crowd got to talking about pancakes, about how they are still the most popular vehicle for maple syrup and how each of our families maintains its particular pancake tradition.

Thus was conceived a new blog feature:
CHERISH THE PANCAKE. What is YOUR pancake recipe?

Carly, Nebraska Knoll crew ’14, submitted the following recipes, her father’s and her own.

Carly’s notes:
On the left: my dad’s 1:1:1 “pancake skeleton” ie he always would add other things, but those were the essentials.

On the right: a good overnight oat soak (mix the wet ingredients the night before with the oats, then in the morning mix the dry and add soaked oat mixture and more milk or yogurt if needed).

To share your pancake/flapjack/griddlecake/hotcake recipe, you may either

Type it into the comment box, or
Scan it and send to info@nebraskaknoll.com.

We hope you do!