American Pancakes

With American pancakes, you create a party on the table for young and old. They are delicious as a hearty breakfast, for lunch, as the main course, and great to use in a dessert.

To write this recipe, it was mainly looking for a good recipe and working method. In the previous months, I have thoroughly researched the composition of ingredients that led to, in my opinion, the tastiest American pancake. The criteria were thick, airy, fluffy pancakes with a soft texture.

I came up with the following recipe in the long search for the best composition of different ingredients.

How do you get American pancakes fluffy?

For a light effect, baking powder is added to the flour. I prefer this composition to self-raising flour because you can use your favorite flour and add some more to the baking powder.

Baking soda is added to get an extra light effect. The acids in buttermilk, which is added last, ensure that the baking soda does its job.
As subtle flavor additions, I went for vanilla extract and cinnamon. With both, they are relatively small additions because otherwise, it can be predominant.

Tip: Use vanilla extract or vanilla pods. The vanilla aroma and vanilla sugar mainly consist of chemical seasonings.

If you have a kamado, you could choose a grill grid, a cast iron grid, at high or low places, and so on. I have also found a preference for that. With a kamado, I would place the cast iron skillet on the cast iron grid. And if you have the option, lower at the bottom. With a kettle grill, you can pour the briquettes in the middle with the skillet in the grill grate center.

For the kamado and the kettle barbecue, choose a temperature of 180-200°C (350 to 400F). The temperature will rise slightly every time the grill is opened. To prevent this, it is essential to keep the grill open only briefly.

Therefore, I recommend placing a heat-resistant surface (wooden cutting board) on your work surface next to the barbecue. Then you can fill and empty the skillet without the grill open for a long time. It is also not very attractive to work above this heat. And scooping the batter in with gloves on is not practical either.

Between the list of ingredients for buttermilk, it says “about 600 ml”. It may be that the batter with 590 ml of the buttermilk already has the correct thickness. You will have to do this by feeling until you have reached the consistency of custard. Later, when applying the batter to the pan, it should not flow too much and not too little.

Keep this in mind, or go for a nice round effect with a metal garnish ring. Three pancakes in a 25cm diameter skillet are doable. Grease the ring well with butter with a brush so that the pancakes come loose before turning. Preparing a dessert with pure round pancakes gives a beautiful end result.

Make sure everything is near the barbecue before baking: heat-resistant gloves to handle the skillet, large spoon to scoop the batter, spatula, a heat-resistant surface, liquid butter, and of course, the bowl with the batter. If you want to make pure round pancakes, grab the garnish rings immediately with a brush to grease the rings.

Depending on the batter’s temperature and thickness, it is not possible to give an exact baking time. You will have to do this intuitively. As with pancakes, the first batch may fail.

This is the desired result. Fantastic fluffy pancakes.

For these American pancakes, I heated up some forest fruits. A good combination.

You are, of course, free to top them with anything and everything. For example, ice cream, fruits, nuts, and whipped cream. But just with jam, syrup, chocolate spread (recommended), powdered sugar, or, like the Americans, with maple syrup.