Buttermilk Makes My Heart Zing

Buttermilk and I didn’t get off to a great start. My grandmother loved buttermilk, so much so that she would keep a container in the fridge for drinking...as if it were regular milk. Buttermilk was regularly served for dinner when she was a little girl so she was used to it.

My first encounter wasn’t as wonderful. I remember it so vividly - my brother and I were visiting my grandmother for the day and I decided to grab an ice cold glass of milk! Sounds awesome right? Wrong. Oh so wrong. Being the independent person that I am, I poured my own lovely glass of...buttermilk. Talk about a rude awakening. So needless to say, it was quite some time before I tried buttermilk again.

It’s only in the past several years that I’ve come to understand its amazingness. I started making cakes and cookies where buttermilk was included in the recipe. And then I tried real buttermilk pancakes. Holy heck. I absolutely can’t get enough of the tang and the zing that buttermilk adds to everything! This past Saturday was the laziest of Saturday’s and was the perfect excuse to make buttermilk pancakes. And so I did - and they were fantastic!

Best Buttermilk Pancakes
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 Cup All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1 1/2 Tbs Sugar
1 Large Egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 Cup Buttermilk
2 Tbs Unsalted Butter, melted

Heat pan on medium high*, and heat the oven to 250 to keep the pancakes warm.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl. Add egg, buttermilk using the whisk. Be careful not to over mix the batter, it should be lumpy.

Once the pan is hot, baste the bottom of the pan with some of the melted butter with a pastry brush. Using a 1/2 cup scoop, our the pancake batter into the pan - my pan was large enough to do three small pancakes at a time. Flip the pancakes when the pancakes bubble, and are slightly dry around the edges. Cook until golden brown.

As you’re working in batches, keep the finished pancakes on a oven-proof plate in the oven to stay warm while you’re finishing the rest of the pancakes.

*I use the pancake method a la Smitten Kitchen.