Hi, foodies in the Hive!
I hope you're all healthy and doing great 😁
Do you have a favorite foolproof recipe for pancakes? I have a couple of them to help me make a good breakfast on a rainy day--and I mean literally rainy.
As you may know, in my city (Cumaná-Venezuela) it is very hot. Fortunately, I live near the coast, so we have a nice breeze quite often. For us, a rainy morning, or at least a sky that promises it for later, is something precious. In my case, I have the luxury of wearing a sweater indoors, hehe, and I also like to prepare something delicious for breakfast other than arepas--which are our all-time favorite breakfast food, but come on, every day the same thing?
At home, pancakes with cane honey and yogurt or cheese is a must on a rainy morning. Hot plant based latte or cocoa for rainy afternoons...but I digress, haha 😋
Ah, the magic of fluffy foods... 💓
Ingredients
I may use different brands of flour and different vegetable milks, but I've made up my mind about margarine; Mavesa is the one I prefer for pancakes, which I like better than butter in this recipe, too, by the way. It's all a matter of taste, I guess. But I can tell you Mavesa margarine makes fluffy pancakes with a pleasant, (close to) nutty aroma.
To make 8-10 pancakes:
- 3 spoonfuls 75 gr margarine (I used salted margarine)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup beaten egg
- 2 cups self rising flour
- Plant based buttermilk: 1/2 - 3/4 vegetable milk (I used coconut milk this time) + 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- (add 1/2 teaspoon salt if margarine is unsalted)
- your favorite toppings 🙃 I added cane honey and some fresh cheese.
Let's Make Fluffy, Lactose-Free Pancakes!
When my son was little, I used to make him pancakes for breakfast at least twice a week, but I used cow's milk to make buttermilk, always, which made super fluffy pancakes. When I turned to vegetable milks some years ago, I had a hard time trying to make pancakes be as fluffy as those I used to make for my son. One day, I thought, I'll mix the margarine and sugar first, and that was it!
But before I mix the sugar and margarine, first of all, I make 3/4 cups of plant based buttermilk by mixing one tablespoon of white vinegar and near to 3/4 cups of homemade coconut milk (which I always have in the fridge). I let the mixture set while I'm preparing the rest. Five minutes are usually enough.
Second, I mix the sugar and margarine with a pastry spoon until it turns a little creamy.
Third, I add the eggs and mix. It's easier if you beat the eggs first; I didn't do it because I was sleepy, I guess. So I had to use a hand whisk 🙈
Next, I add the sifted flour...
... and fold it well with my pastry spoon.
At this point, the batter feels like a cookie dough. It's time to add the buttermilk.
So I add the buttermilk...
And fold again.
I mix for a couple of minutes until it turns homogeneous. This batter must rest 20-30 minutes before we heat our pan.
I let this batter rest for half an hour. Notice how it turned a little thicker, ideal to pour it in the hot pan.
These pancakes are medium sized, about 20 centimeters in diameter. And they puff up to a little over a centimeter thick. I use about 3/4 of a tablespoon of batter for each one.
I pour the mixture into the hot pan with a little oil and cook them over medium-high heat.
As with the pancakes, after the first pancake, I don't add oil back to the pan.
As soon as I see the little wholes form on the surface, I know it's time to flip them over or they won't puff up as desired.
These pancakes cook for about a minute or a minute and a half on each side.
You can see how the pancakes start to puff up as soon as you flip them over.
Like everyone else, I guess, I'm piling them to keep them warm.
Then I serve them with cane honey that I always have in the fridge.
In my opinion, cane honey and fresh cheese make perfect toppings for hot pancakes.
How about you? How do you like your pancakes?
As always, I hope you've found this recipe helpful 😁
Bon appetite!
All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.
Thank you so much for your visit :)
