Pancakes! [by csc]

[ts]
This post has been waiting in the wings long enough. So, without further delay, in her own breathless way, here's our guest blogger -- CSC -- and her comedy of pancakes, in four parts.

[csc]
There were very few weekend mornings when I get a jolt of energy and decide to make pancakes for breakfast!

The First Time
The first time I made it, I wanted SOOOOO badly to use our new “gadget”, the food processor.

So, even though the recipe says to use a wooden spoon (I was using Michael Smith’s cookbook), I JUST HAD TO USE THE FOOD PROCESSOR. Because! The food processor’s instruction manual said that I can use it for pancake batter!!

Of course, the batter turned out really tough pancakes that took forever to cook. I just gave up!

Nothing wrong with Michael Smith’s recipe, though. In fact, his cookbook is the ONE true cookbook that gave me confidence.

(His recipes are very simple to follow. His language is clear. He tells you how to move away from being tied to a "recipe" by using proportions. He gives different ways on how you can use variations on his recipes. On his show, the main theme is how to cook "without a recipe.")

His book made me hopeful that I, too, could become a good cook.

Well, perhaps not like JS/TS. But you know, cook something from scratch and not just heat up pork and beans and tell my son that “We’re cooking!”

The Second and Third Time
So back to the pancakes.

The second time I made this, I used Joy of Cooking. Turned out pretty good. For some of the pancakes in that batch, I added blueberries and -- because they were the kids' favorite -- some chocolate chips. Of course, they just picked out the chocolate chips!

There was another time where I was "inspired" to add chooped apples to the batter. After cooking one pancake and tasting it, I thought:

“UGH!! This is salty!”

Then, in my little inexperienced cook’s head, I thought that maybe if I put bananas in it, that would fix it. So I put in bananas. And still it was salty!

Of course, that’s when I realized that our unmarked containers of iodized salt and sugar were right beside each other. And well... everything went straight to the garbage!

The Fourth Time
The latest pancake recipe that I tried, which got quite a good review (JS: “So fluffy!!!”), was the America's Test Kitchenrecipe.

Their tip about putting the cooked pancakes in an oven at 200 degrees, though… I guess it meant only for a little while…. Because I left the pancakes in there as I cooked the rest of the batter, and the first few batches got tough!! So I had to throw out a few “perfect-looking-but-tough-to-eat” pancakes!

Who would have thought pancakes could be so “tough”??!!



And so concludes my comedy of pancakes.

'Til we meet again!
(It will be the next time I have "energy". In other words, it will be a while.)


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CSC and CSC-collaborated blog posts:
Carrot Cake
Lemon Bars
Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies
Mario's Pine Nut and Ricotta Tart
Pancakes!
Shanghai Potstickers, Faux Siu Mai and "Huo Tyeh" (aka CSC's Chinese Dumplings)
Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Quick and Rice Chocolate Frosting