We've had a number of nice pancake-mornings recently. My dear companion, coming at it with fresh eyes (never a pancake-maker before this!) produced the fluffiest, softest ones I've ever enjoyed...and they were not made with buttermilk. When I lived alone, my own method for pancakes was haphazard, improvisational, and concerned with fiber and nutrition and economy of egg. One egg or none at all, a dash of leaven and salt, and a few loose handfuls of oat bran, cornmeal, pulverized nuts or whatever was on hand, just held together with a slurry of milk and a bit of refined flour. For company and special brunches I made proper pancakes with real buttermilk, which still seems like a revelation. My mother introduced me to the wonders of buttermilk pancakes, but long after my childhood was over...when I was growing up we relied on dried buttermilk from a can!
So I was quite surprised when my dear breakfast-maker whipped up the most basic pancakes imaginable: a bit of white flour, a few teaspoons of sugar, a dash of salt, two eggs, some melted butter and the right quantity of milk... we were short some of the flour, as it turned out. These simple pancakes turned out wonderfully fluffy and light, quite indulgent-tasting and unlike the coarse "flapjacks" I used to scarf down alone each morning.
