Fat Tuesday!

I have to be honest, I never remember when it is Fat Tuesday but thanks to Facebook and blogs I follow I was reminded with enough time to plan for pancakes for dinner for my crew.    We don't eat pancakes a lot.  There are seven of us and making pancakes seems to take FOREVER, add on that having to cut them up for the littles AND keep an almost 14 year old boy with enough food on his plate, it just doesn't always make sense for us.  In fact I can't remember the last time we had pancakes, it has to have been over a year ago!

So I used to have a fantastic recipe, I would make the dry mix and keep it in a jar and just add the wet ingredients to it when we wanted pancakes.  It was so easy, which I needed because as I already mentioned it seemed like such a big task making pancakes for the whole fam. 

So I went searching for a good recipe.  I first went to one of my favourite foodie blogs to find a recipe and was going to make these pancakes.  I printed up the recipe and headed for the kitchen only to realise that I didn't have buttermilk OR sour cream in the fridge.  UGH.  OK so back to the computer to search for anotehr recipe that didn't require those ingredients and I found this recipe.  So the picture is not appetizing but it had 5 stars so I decided to give it a shot.  I am SO glad I did.  They were delicious.  I doubled the recipe because I have two teens, a hubby and three kids 10 and under.  We go through A LOT of food!  I also decided to serve bacon, homestyle potatoes and grapefruit sections. 

First I mixed the dry ingredients together, flour, baking powder, salt and sugar

Then I put eggs, milk and vanilla into the bowl of my stand mixer

and mixed it on med/high until it looked frothy

Then I added the dry ingredients to the went and mixed on medium until it was well blended, scraping the side of the bowl as needed.

I melted some butter onto my electric griddle and poured 1/3 cup pancake batter per pancake.  Those bubbles of butter around the edges give the pancakes that delicious crispy edge.  Yum.

A pat of butter on top

of course you can't forget the REAL maple syrup.



I decided to bake the bacon, I had never cooked it that way before and I love it.  I won't ever fry bacon again!  I just layed it on a baking sheet and popped it in a oven preheated to 400 degrees, I simply watched it and turned it over when it looked like it was ready.  It tasted really good and since it was baked that means it was good for us right?! :)

we did pat it off with paper towel to remove the excess oil, it tasted a lot less fatty than normal which we all seemed to prefer

The simple but perfect pancake (food.com)

Here is the recipe DOUBLED

• 2 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cups milk
•  4 teaspoons vanilla 
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted or 6 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used butter)
  
  
•  3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 tablespoons sugar (for diner-style pancakes) or 1/2 cup instant malted milk powder (for diner-style pancakes)

Directions:

1. Beat the eggs, milk, and vanilla until light and foamy, about 3 minute at high speed of a mixer (I do this step in blender and mix the rest in bowl with a large whisk).
2. Stir in butter or oil.
3. Whisk the dry ingredients together and gently, but quickly, mix into the egg and milk mixture.
4. Let the batter relax while griddle is heating (or overnight in refrigerator) The batter will thicken upon resting.
5. Grease and preheat griddle.
6. The griddle is ready if a drop of water will skitter across the surface, evaporating immediately.
7. Drop ¼ cupfuls of batter on the lightly greased griddle.
8. Cook on one side until bubbles begin to form and break (this is the time to add anything like berries, chocolate chips, etc), then turn the pancakes and cook the other side until brown (turning only once)