Pancakes from scratch

I was in a "no recipe" mood this morning, and my wonderful wife asked for pancakes. (Go ahead, twist my arm.... OK, you can stop now. You had me at "pancakes").

Today I wanted to go with something a little eggier and to experiment with whipping the egg whites.



I separated two eggs. Whisked the whites, but they weren't getting into much of a foam so I added a pinch of cream of tartar and that did the trick. Set the whites aside.

Whisked the yolks with some plain yogurt. Then added some almond meal and about the same amount of almond flour, a pinch of salt and baking powder. I took particular relish in not measuring anything. I then added enough milk to make a thick batter and whisked a few strokes until smooth.

Then fold in the whipped egg whites (which were probably just shy of soft peaks).

One other experiment was preheating the griddle. I have been frustrated with having it hot in the middle of the griddle but not all the way to the edge. This time I set it between two pairs of burners and turned on all four burners to preheat it from the sides. Then, once the batter was ready the sides were at 350 degrees and the middle was around 240, I moved it over just the two burners and let the center come up to temp. This kept much more even heat through the process. 

As the pancakes cooked I put them on plates pre-warming in a 200 degree oven.

For they syrup I heated two Tbs of butter, 1 Tbs of lemon juice, and what was left from our jar of our caramel spice pear butter and the Trader Joe's fig butter jars.

Next Time: Sharon pointed out that I could preheat the griddle in the oven. Interesting thought.