So You Think You Can Pancake

Pancake Afficionado and Ihopapotamus teaming up to conquer the breakfast world, one recipe/review at a time!

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We Moved!!

Hey All!

We've packed our bags and moved over to thinkpancake.wordpress.com - same pancaking awesomeness, just a little more wiggleroom for me to blog-speriment.

See you around!

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Renovations!

Hi Fancakes!! Please excuse any blog-oddities (bloddities?) while we're renovating!!

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The Buckwheat Stops Here!

Two confessions:

Sorry this is late! I went skiing yesterday and when I remembered to post last night, tumblr just wasn't having it...

I have no idea what that title is supposed to mean but it made me randomly giggle.

This week I made buckwheat crepes (get the original recipe from David Lebovitz and see mine here).  After the Clinton St pancakes last week, I wanted try another classic pancake/crepe recipe.  Buckwheat crepes are super versatile and delicious.  I tried the crepes 4 ways:

nutella

lemon and honey

jam

butter and sugar

fried egg and cheese

Every topping was delicious - of course the simple butter and sugar and honey and lemon combos were so so good, but you can basically put anything on top of a buckwheat crepe.  Toss some lightly coated mesclun salad under that egg and you've got a pretty fancy lunch going!

The crepe batter does need to rest overnight but besides that, the batter is super easy to put together and the pancakes are really easy to work with (aka they don't rip very easily!)

4 out of 5 stackies: 

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They're Classics For A Reason...

Hey fancakes, this week I decided to test out a classic pancake recipe from Clinton St Baking Co.  Their pancakes are famous, as in voted multiple times as the best pancakes in NYC multiple times not to mention our very own Ihopapotamus gave them a 4 out of 5 Paul Bunyan review...high praise indeed!

Press aside, I was a little worried that my homecooked version of these famous pancakes just wasn't going to measure up.  I shouldn't have been afraid though, the recipe is posted by none other than DeDe Lahman, co-owner of the Bakery and when I was cracking eggs, I got a double yolk! These pancakes were clearly fated to succeed! (check out my recipe box for my smaller batch recipe, with more pics!)

On their own the pancakes are delicious! They're a little on the plain side, but just lightly sweet and with a really unique and delicious eggy texture.  The pancakes are also just as fluffy as promised with a springiness reminiscent of sponge cake.

I chose to go with the traditional powdered sugar/syrup/butter combo and I'm glad I did! These pancakes are so good that you don't need to do much to make them delicious and sometimes a classic pancake breakfast is exactly what I want.  

4.5 out of 5 out of 5 stackies: 

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Mile High Rocky Road Pancakes - Go Broncos!!

I'm not sure what the cross-section is between fancakes and broncos fans, but I'm officially making this a Broncos zone.  Skip to my recipe here.

(excuse the smeared cream, the pancakes were hot!)

I have to confess that I'm totally an "adopted" Broncos fan, the fiance is a true member of Broncos country and somehow I've absorbed some of his fandomness...osmosis? That's a thing, right. Anyway, back to pancakes.

(from Wikipedia)

I was debating between a couple of different ideas for Colorado/Broncos-themed pancakes but ultimately, I went with some super fluffy rocky road ice cream inspired ones.  Classically, rocky road is made with nuts, chocolate, and marshmallows and I basically did the same thing except that I substituted whipped cream for the marshmallows.

Rocky Road = Rocky Mountains = Broncos...that's the chain I was going for...

And, to make these a mile high, I added some extra leaveners to the recipe so the pancakes would fluff up more.  Adding the chocolate and nuts will cause the pancakes to fall a little, but they're so fluffy to start with that you still end up with a nice fluffy stack of pancakes.

Oh, and don't worry too much about what type of nuts you use. I just used whatever I had laying around the kitchen (a mix of ground pecans and chopped peanuts) and it turned out perfectly crunchy and delicious.

3.75 out of 5 stackies: 

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Off the Griddle with Ihopapotamus at...the Westgate Hotel

Hey there, a little while ago I was in San Diego, CA for a family vacation.  Through some mysterious internet savvy, my brother-in-law and sister managed to book us a room at the classic Westgate Hotel in the Gaslamp Quarter.

(image from google maps)

Serious internet hotel booking voodoo magic.

(photo from the Westgate Hotel site...but seriously, this is what it looks like)

We'd heard that brunch at the Hotel was AMAZING, so we set out to give it a try - unfortunately (and also fortunately) we were hungry around breakfast-time (that whole East Coast - West Coast time change really got us) instead of brunch-time so we decided to have regular breakfast instead of the fancier brunch.  In any case, both meals are served in this amazing room.

 (photo from the Westgate Hotel)

Since we were there, we decided to do it up and get a variety of breakfast items...you know...for research.

My sister had the Pancakes with two eggs which I, of course, sampled liberally.

The pancakes were a little plain on their own and a bit on the dense side but serviceable.  The eggs were ordinary and the potatoes were excellent, there was some sort of cheesy topping that really sealed in the goodness.

I mixed it up and had the waffle.

The cream was really good - it tasted fresh and lightly sweet.  Overall, the waffle had some good flavor but could definitely have been fluffier.  As they were, the waffles sort of sat in my belly, definitely not optimal. (oh, btw, my brother in law makes the BEST waffles...if you're interested in diversifying out to waffles, let me know, I might be able to convince him to do a guest post.)  What was really good was the syrup, I think it had melted butter mixed into it - genius.  The waffles definitely needed the toppings: syrup, cream, fruit, on their own, they were....not something I'd choose to eat.

My brother in law went with the classic American breakfast.  What can I say, it's a classic for a reason.  His breakfast also came with some danish - the danish was more like a sweet roll than your classic danish but it was warm and delicious.

Oh, and my niece had some donuts!

The donuts were also a little dense, but there was a warm chocolate dipping sauce that was the bizomb.  BAM.  Warm chocolate makes everything good.

Overall, the food was good/okay, but the ambiance more than made up for it.

3.75 out of 5 Paul Bunyans: 

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Tickle Your Palat...schinken

Palatschinken are sort of like Austria's answer to the French crepe, and they are delicious.  There's actually a whole bunch of crepe-like pancakes from eastern/central Europe.  Besides palatschinken, there are palačinka (found in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republich, Serbia, Slovenia, and Macedonia), Slovakian palacinka, and hungarian palacsinta, to name just a few.

(Get the original recipe here and my version here)

If you're looking for a quick crepe recipe in a pinch, definitely check this recipe out - the recipe is super simple and easy to whip up.  Part of the reason why palatschinken are easier to work with are: (1) the batter doesn't need to rest so you can use it right away, and (2) the batter is a bit thicker than that for crepes so the pancakes are slightly heartier and less prone to tearing.

And, like crepes, the flavor of the palatschinken is pretty mild lending themselves to a variety of toppings.  I went with a drizzle honey, a squeeze of lime, and just a light sprinkling of powdered sugar.  These would be just as delicious with fresh fruit, jams/jellies, nutella, peanut butter....you get the idea.

3.75 out of 5 stackies: 

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Sweet (Potato) Tooth

I love sweet potatoes, and, actually, I like sweet potato pie even better than pumpkin pie, so when I found this recipe for Sweet Potato Pancakes with a Brown Butter Syrup, I was excited to say the least.

If you're anything like me, I'll save you the pain of having to wait a second longer and give you the original recipe and my version here (which makes half batch of about 9 palm-sized pancakes).

The first time I ever had sweet potato, it was when my older sister took me to the Union Square farmer's market in the fall and let me pick out a few goodies (that was also where I had strawberry-rhubarb crumble for the first time, another favorite of mine!).  It was love a first bite, I love the delicate sweet flavor of sweet potato, in my opinion, it's the more demure cousin of pumpkin and I'm all about it.

These pancakes have the same sweet delicacy of the sweet potato and will definitely satisfy anyone with a sweet potato tooth. On their own, the pancakes are lightly sweet and with just a hint of that potato-y goodness.  With the sauce, the pancakes are outrageous.  They also have an awesome toothfulness, a little chewy but still light and fluffy.

With the sauce, these pancakes will definitely transport you to fall, if not to the front of the fireplace, they totally give off that warm comfort food, "I just want to lay in a mountain of blankets vibe"...so perfect weekend food.  Oh, and if the sauce hardens on you (like it did to me), just reheat it a little - not too much because you don't want the sugar to burn, but if you turn the stove on low and stir, the sauce should get re-sauce-ified in just a few minutes.

4 out of 5 stackies: 

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Cloudy With A Chance of Pancakes

So, these "Cloud Pancakes" get most of their texture from small curd cottage cheese, it might sound weird, but it actually kind of works.

This is the second time I've used cottage cheese in pancake batter, (the first time was with these carrot cottage cheese pancakes) and both times, the pancakes came out fairly interesting.  To jump to the recipe, click here, and for the original recipe, go here.

Like the carrot pancakes, these were also very very soft. Almost a little too soft, I like my pancakes with just a bit of toothsomeness.  The other thing was that the overall flavor was kind of plain with a hint of cheesiness.  It was really neither savory nor sweet and I would've preferred a more definitive flavor profile one way or another.

I ended up eating these topped with nutella, which made them delicious, although, nutella generally has that effect on most things.  If I were to make these again, I'd definitely add some zest to the batter, orange or lemon depending on how I was feeling, or maybe even some apple chunks.  Either way, these pancakes definitely need a kick in the pants to earn some more stackies.

2.5 out of 5 stackies:

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Off the Griddle with Ihopapotamus at...Eatery (sort of)

Oh the weather outside is frightful on the Upper West Side!  What’s a girl to do when the streets of Manhattan are a slushy, cold mess?  Clearly, there is only one answer:  Pancake delivery!  I was curious (and somewhat skeptical) about how door-to-door pancakes would turn out, but my roommate and I put Eatery’s promise of delicious pancake delivery to the test. 

(image from google maps!)

Eatery is located at 798 Ninth Avenue (53rd St. & 9th Avenue), New York, NY 10019.  Their number is 
[phone], although my roommate and I placed our order through Seamless.  After considering numerous options, we were drawn in by Eatery’s assortment of interesting pancakes.  I ordered the “House Pumpkin Buttermilk Pancakes,” and my roommate went for the “Belgian Chocolate Buttermilk Pancakes,”  which were served with strawberry butter.

 We placed our order late Saturday morning – nothing like starting the weekend off with home-delivered brunch! – and it arrived at our apartment about fifty minutes later. 

The pancakes were delivered in individualized tupperware and topped with strawberries and blueberries.  Butter and syrup was provided. (Extra syrup was available for an additional $0.50 cost.)  We were disappointed with the butter – particularly my roommate’s so-called strawberry butter – because it was largely melted by the time our delivery arrived, which gave it a weird, unsettling consistency.  The pancakes were served with some sort of mini-pastries, too, which were freshly baked, topped with sugar, and tasted like warm cookie dough in the middle, a pleasant surprise.  

  [Buttermilk Pumpkin Pancakes on Top Left; Belgian Chocolate Pancakes on the Bottom Right]

[Buttermilk Pumpkin Pancake]

[Belgian Chocolate Buttermilk Pancake]

[Melted Strawberry Butter on the Left; Syrup on the Right]

[Delicious Mystery Pastry]

[Buttermilk Pumpkin Pancakes]

As for the pancakes themselves – they were excellent.  My buttermilk pumpkin pancakes were sweet, with just a slight hint of pumpkin.  They were still warm upon delivery, and they had a fluffy, fresh-off-the-griddle consistency.  (The consistency had been my biggest concern about delivery.)  My roommate’s chocolate buttermilk pancakes were also loaded with chocolate chips – but not to the point that the chocolate was overwhelming – and had the same sweet taste and consistency that my pancakes did.  Although the pancakes were small in size, they were extremely filling.  Each order contained four pancakes, and I only managed to finish two, and my roommate finished about 1½.  I’m not complaining though; obviously the only thing better than one delicious pancake meal is another!  (And, for the record, the panckaes reheated quite well.) 

Overall, I consider my first venture into the world of pancake delivery a resounding success, and one that I would definitely repeat.  To Eatery, I tip my hat, and award four Paul Bunyans for warm, fresh pancakes delivered straight to my door that brightened a cold winter day.  

4 out of 5 Paul Bunyans:

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People Who Live in Gingerbread Houses...

...should keep the theme going and make gingerbread pancakes.  There's a moral in there, right?  Anyway, it doesn't really get more holiday-y than gingerbread pancakes (at least in my humble pancaking opinion).  If you've got ingredients to make gingerbread, then you might as well keep that holiday flavor going with these pancakes, right?

Get the original recipe here, and my version here (which makes a smaller batch)

You'll notice that the batter is fairly light in color (at least for gingerbread), and was about the same shade as a milky latte.  I was a little worried that the pancakes wouldn't taste as gingerbread-y since the batter wasn't as dark, but my fears ended up totally unfounded.  Oh, also, even though the batter looks like a latte, it's super thick. SUPER THICK. Definitely not something you want to drink.

I couldn't resist trying to make gingerbread men shaped pancakes, but it was definitely a bit of a trial.  I've seen pancake molds (like these), but I opted just to use a gingerbread man cookie cutter that I happened to have. The cookie cutter worked but it was not ideal and I definitely burned my fingertips...oh well.  Also, because the batter was so dense, if a pancake was even a bit on the thick side, it tended to get burned.

Taste-wise, those gingerbread spices definitely came through.  The pancakes are not as intense as gingerbread cookies, but the complete flavor profile is definitely there.  For me, what kept these from being true all-star pancakes was the texture, the pancakes were dense and a bit chewy, not ideal, especially since I prefer my pancakes super fluffy.  Still, I would make these pancakes again, if only for their absolute holiday appropriateness.

4 out of 5 stackies: 

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Reuben's Apple Pancakes

(but make sure you say it like this)  Also, check out the post I worked off of from Four Pounds Flour and take a look at my Recipe Box.

This pancake (pancakes, actually, because I made 2!!) are bangin' to say the least.  To say the most (or just more), they're warm, gooey, cinnamon-y, apple-y, fried dough-y, pancakes of awesomeness.  

This pancake is basically the love child (much beloved child) of apple pie and funnel cake, which, let's be frank, can be resisted by no one.  Making the pancakes is a little bit tricky, you have to let the apples marinate for 24 hours (I only did 8) and the pancake flip is definitely an expert-level technique.  I actually cheated and flipped the pancake onto a plate and slid it back into the pan...the video at Four Pounds Flour is a really good example of what to do, though.

Whatever your skill level, though, these pancakes are worth it, so suit up and get in the kitchen! Oh, definitely dive into these pancakes hungry because they are a bit of a gut-buster - in the best way possible.

4 out of 5 stackies: 

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Farçous

I think it's time we brought it back to savory pancakes and these French Swiss chard pancakes definitely did the trick.

The farçous were relatively simple to put together (I was lucky to score some really nice looking Swiss chard at the farmer's market)...plus, there are so many vegetables, that they're basically healthy, right? (Get my recipe here and the original here).

(my good-looking ingredients)

You basically just blend everything together and fry - doesn't get much simpler than that!  I will say that the flavor wasn't quite as potent as I had expected - maybe some more onion would have cured that.

(green goddess dressing)

I ended up making some kefir-based green goddess dressing that was SO GOOD with the farçous, it was really delicious. 

Overall, the pancakes were good (especially with the dressing) but they weren't AH-MAZING.

3.25 out of 5 stackies:

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There's No Way Like Norway

A few months ago, my sister mentioned that she was drinking kefir, we had a brief discussion on what kefir is (a fermented milk drink made with "kefir grains"...check wikipedia) and what it tasted like, I filed it away in the "hmm, maybe I should make pancakes with this" part of my brain and sort of forgot about it.

Until, of course, I found a recipe for Norwegian Pancakes (lapper) that used kefir! (Get the original here and see my version over at my recipe box.)

Taste-wise, these were pretty good. The kefir can be interchanged with buttermilk, but the pancakes were plenty rich already, so I think buttermilk may be overwhelming.  The pancakes also came out super fluffy which is always exciting.

(a sideview to show fluffiness)

On the con side, the pancakes were super plain, almost bland.  Once I added some lingonberry jam the pancakes were really good, but I had a hard time eating more than one.  I think adding some zest to the batter would definitely be key.  

2.75 out of 5 stackies:

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Off the Griddle with Ihopapotamus at...the Golden Reef

Hello pancake fans – excited to be here! This Ihopapotamus ventured all the way to good old Nassau County, New York for the Golden Reef Diner. It’s in Rockville Centre to be specific (south shore of LONGISLAND). I wrote Long Island as one word, as it’s pronounced! You’re welcome.

(from Google Maps!)

The Golden Reef is located on a strip of Sunrise Highway with countless other diners. Having been to quite a few of them, I can vouch for the Golden Reef as being one of the best diners, maybe even the best on the Island. You should go just to see the gelato bar (seriously gorgeous and made me regret not having room when offered free samples for ogling). The omelets are absolutely huge and definitely worth it. My first trip I had a prosciutto and white cheddar omelet and my second trip I dived into silver dollar pancakes. Both were really, really good.

(photo from yelp)

I’ve been to places where I’ve enjoyed the silver dollars more than the actual pancakes, so I knew I wanted to try the big people sized pancakes for a review of the diner. I’ll start by saying the decor of the diner is standard, it’s very clean and has the usual diner charm that you expect from a classic place. The staff is very friendly and attentive and service is fast. Big points.

  ANYWAY, I ordered the pancakes. I struggled not to order from the specialty list as they were serving pumpkin pancakes. So seasonal, very fall. We have fun. Seriously though, Oreo pancakes and red velvet pancakes tempted me, but I like to keep it classic. And under 3000 calories. Probably.

  The pancakes I ordered were incredible large, so I was glad I ordered a short stack. I’m a butter gal and the butter they served was perfectly room temperature. Don’t you hate trying to “spread” ice-cold butter? Me too. These pancakes are everything I want pancakes to be: huge, light, soft, fluffy, and more importantly, really delicious. I’d give up texture for taste, but I didn’t have to here. I really cannot say enough how good these were. I’m getting hungry thinking about it.

My only real gripe with Golden Reef was that the pancakes come with a jar of fake maple-ish syrup. You know, the stuff that’s actually sugar syrup with some caramel coloring and maple extract. This is fine and I understand that a lot of people have no idea that it’s not real maple syrup, and that people actually like this stuff, but they sell real maple syrup containers for a few bucks on the menu! You can get a little container of 100% maple syrup if you pay a little extra, which I didn’t because I don’t put maple syrup on pancakes anyway, so there.

  (also, a delicious omelette)

I’m awarding Golden Reef Diner 4.5 Bunyans because it was one of the best pancake meals I’ve ever had, everything about the meal itself was friendly and fast, and there was always water in my glass. Pancake on, my friends.

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Ra-Ra-Racuchy

(Listen to the song that inspired my blog title here).  This week, we're all about Racuchy or Polish-style pancakes with raspberries. 

These pancakes were a mixed bag, on the one hand, they were delicious, on the other, they were kind of a pain to make.  (You can find the original recipe here).  I think that some of the issues I had were due to errors in conversion when I changed the recipe from weight to volume, but I think I've adjusted my recipe enough to account for these errors and also made some other tweaks that should make for better pancaking in general.  (You can get my recipe from my recipe box!)

(mmmm, raspberries)

So the main "pro" of these pancakes are that they are delicious.  The pancakes are soft, delicate, and lightly sweet from the powdered sugar.  The raspberries are a bright flavor contrast and offer a pretty awesome zing that stands out really well against the pancakes...I may have eaten the entire batch of pancakes and not shared with anyone, so, interpret that however you want...

The main cons to these pancakes were that they were so so soft that they were almost impossible to flip and would get all squidged together when I tried to turn them.  In fact, only about 2 of the pancakes came out unscathed (those would be the top 2 on the stack in my picture).  The others all came out...ugly (but still tasty!)--so really, me eating the ruined ones was for my photographic and journalistic integrity.

3.75 out of 5 stackies (more for the execution than anything else):

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