Who doesn’t love pancakes? Thin and delicate, or thick and squidgy. Bite-sized or generously proportioned. Rolled, folded, or piled into towers. Drenched in syrup or stuffed with vegetables. Breakfast manna or superlative supper. Whatever your tastes or gustatory requirements, there’s something for everyone in pancake land.
Researchers believe that as far back as 30,000 years ago, humans were partial to a pancake stack. Stone Age cooks mixed together ground-up plants and water, and fried the resulting batter on hot rocks greased with woolly mammoth lard. That last bit’s made up, of course, but you get the picture; pancakes are almost as old as cooking itself. Why have they survived the test of time? Probably because they’re cheap, and this vast food family shares one defining feature: flatness. It makes them easy to prepare, portable when necessary, and a versatile vehicle for almost any ingredient a cook has to hand. That’s why virtually all cuisines have a version, from yeasty injera in the Horn of Africa to pannekoek in Holland.
These days, most of us know pancakes as stars of the breakfast table, a morning staple in some parts of the world, a daybreak treat in others. Served American diner-style, with bacon and an amber puddle of syrup, pancakes deliver the flavour-bomb triumvirate of salt, sugar, and fat. But there’s so much more to pancakes than that. Stuffed with meat and baked under a blanket of gooey cheese, pancakes are the ultimate comfort food on a cold day. Plied with leafy greens and topped with an egg, they can be a nutritionally complete light meal. Studded with sweet or savoury morsels, and then baked until puffed and golden, pancakes transmogrify into something entirely different.
Whatever your personal preference, pancakes are relatively simple to make in their elemental form, with just a few basic ingredients required. There is a certain knack to getting them just right, but raw interiors, burnt exteriors, and chronic pancake stickage can easily be overcome with practice, the right kit, and by bearing a few basics things in mind.
A well-seasoned or non-stick griddle or frying pan, cast iron if budget allows, can really make the difference between pancake heaven and pancake hell. Keeping a vigilant eye on the heat, turning it up or down as required, will also enhance the chances of pancake perfection. And, of course, a well-seasoned batter that’s just the right consistency is key to making them flavoursome and delicious. Notwithstanding this advice, the first pancake in a batch will invariably fail, especially when making crêpes. This is just the will of the pancake gods and is not, in fact, a problem. The scrappy mess that is your first pancake is the tester, the chance to get the heat just right. It’s also a sublime cook’s treat, to be eaten very hot and sprinkled with sugar straight from the pan.
It makes sense that we should all master how to make pancakes. Almost everyone loves them because they’re flipping delicious. Onwards to the batter!
