One Girl Who...: Can't make Pancakes

It seems like a stupid thing to say doesn't it? I mean who can't make pancakes? I remember when I was about five years old making pancakes during choosing time. They're very straight forward. Don't you just whack all of the ingredients together and cook the pancakes?

Buttermilk Pancakes

+1c Buttermilk

+1 c self raising flour

+2 tbsp sugar

+ Rind of 1/2 a lemon

+2 tbsp butter

-Combine all ingredients.

-Cook

Hmm... that's where you're wrong. It's the cooking that I always find difficult. The picture on the buttermilk container always looks something like this

And somehow everytime I make pancakes they always end up looking like this.

I follow the instructions and watch my pancakes attentively but for some reason they just always end up looking like reject pancakes.

Being the scientist that I am I started analysing all of the variables that go into making pancakes in order to determine the cause of the problem. I knew that the recipe was perfect (otherwise it's incorrect advertising and all that jazz) so it must have been one of the cooking factors. I tried changing the way that I prepared the pan for the pancakes.

Yes, it's a very technical process. You see my Granny recently taught me the way to make a perfect omelet. 'One should always add a walnut size piece of butter to the pan and then wait until it's bubbling furiously before one adds the omelet mixture.' My Granny always says 'one' instead of you or I. Using this idea I dutifully added a walnut chunk of butter and waited for it to start spitting at me. I then added the mixture and hopefully waited for a beautiful batch of perfectly cooked. It didn't work. My pancakes would be most accurately personified to be teenagers with bad tan lines and a serious bout of acne.

The only other issue that I could possibly think of was the pan. You see we have one of the 'non stick' pans that was advertised on TV with the person cooking rocks in it. The theory - 'this pan never scratches!' Hmm well if they really wanted to test that then they should have sent that pan to our house. Within six months the pan was scratched and well and truly a 'stick' pan. This could've made me decide to go out and get a new nonstick pan if it weren't for the fact that in the movie 'Pleasantville' (which is set in the fifties well and truly before teflon was on pan surfaces) the pancakes look perfect and golden. Yes i know that I shouldn't believe everything that movies tell me but my year 11 English teacher told me that 'Pleasantville' gives an accurate representation of the fifties.

Anyway that little clip means that I can't blame the pan.

So now I find that this morning I'm serving my family a batch of speckled pancakes. Hmm I think that making a perfect batch of pancakes should be another new years resolution. Although that may mean that my flatmates will have to deal with a lot of ugly looking pancakes ibefore I perfect the art.

Now I know I haven't blogged for quite sometime so I thought I'd post some pretty pictures which I've taken recently.