"pankies"

No I'm not talking about hankie pankie here, "pankies" is what I called pancakes as a little girl. I was very fortunate to have a mother who made my sisters and I breakfast most every day of the week (including school days). Pancake day was always my favorite! She had 3 varieties that she would make, the ones from the Bisquick box, Mama Sue's Pancakes (my maternal grandmother's recipie, although not sure where it actually came from), and on the occassional weekend morning we had Swedish Pancakes (crepes).

Mama Sue's Pancake Recipie

3/4 Cup all- purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 TBS sugar

2 eggs

1 Cup buttermlk

2 TBS melted butter

Measure baking soda & salt into flour. Using a whisk, stir ingredients together to "sift" them. In another bowl, beat eggs until frothy. Add buttermilk & sugar and blend. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients. Blend slightly and add melted butter (don't use a whisk here). Stir until blended but not smooth batter, it is best if slightly lumpy!

Cook on pan at medium heat with butter or non-stick cooking spray on the pan. When top of the pancake starts to looks a little dry and bubbles start to form and stay open it is time to flip pancake. Pancakes are delicate when done. Can be served with syrup, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar, jam, pumpkin or apple butter or whatever else you fancy. Enjoy!

Swedish Pancakes Recipie

3 eggs

1 1/4 C Bisquick

1 3/4 C milk

1/4 C melted butter

Blend together in a blender until smooth. Cook in a small skillet or crepe pan. Use enough batter to lightly coat pan for one pancake.

Any of my roommates who I have lived with over the years though college and beyond know that I still like my homemade breakfasts (especially pancakes) in the morning. Once while living in Baltimore, I made Mama Sue's Pancakes for some roommates and friends. A few weeks later, Mama Sue called my cell while I was around one of the friends present at the breakfast. After I got off and said that was my grandma, Mama Sue, my friend started laughing and said, "I didn't know that Mama Sue was a real person let alone your grandma, I thought she was like Aunt Jemima"! We got a great laugh out of that one!

I am always altering current tried and true recipies to see if I can make them better or searching the internet for new recipies. My favorite alteration and easiest is substituting the white flour for whole wheat flour. It usually just results in a denser pancake. I have also tried adding vanilla extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The worse that can happen when experiementing is that you will have to start over.

Has anyone seen that cool pan at Williams Sonoma that makes pancake puffs? I kept wanting an excuse to justify buying that unique pan but the expense and lack of necessity of the pan kept detering me from purchasing it. Lucky me though, one day I was shopping a the beloved Target and come across the clone of this pan in the "As Seen On TV" section of the store and even better it was only $9.99. Needless to say I snatched it up and was very excited to try out the pancake puffs at my next opportunity. The circular pan has little half circles domed into the pan so that after the dough starts to puff up you flip the pancake in the pan and the uncooked batter continues to puffs up and fill the dome again and make a full puff ball. The options for these puff balls are endless, you can even fill them with jam or fresh fruit. So far I have tried that basic pancake puff and this is the result topped with syrup!