Breakfast in New York

I know, I know, I've been away a very long time. Apologies. But I've been busy! Two weeks ago, I moved to New York City with Nick, a very long, very exhausting process that ate up all my time for weeks. But we're here now and somewhat settled into our apartment, which has, I swear, the best kitchen in Manhattan. Lucky me! I've been making good use of it, cooking tasty, if simple, dinners every night. Some of the highlights have been spaghetti and meat balls, blue cheese burgers with cole slaw salad, beef tacos, soba noodle salad with marinated steak and, Nick's favorite, pork chops with mushroom risotto.

The one thing that's been lacking is baked goods - it's about 80 degrees out most days, and the one (tiny) downside to my enormous kitchen is that it's so big, it's hard to air condition effectively with our one window unit. So the heat has kind of deterred me from making anything too oven-intensive. The other obstacle was my lack of baking ingredients - flour, sugar and the like. We live in a 5th floor walkup, so I can only buy as much food as I can carry up 4 flights of stairs. I had to forgo the baking essentials in favor of dinner ingredients for many days. But then yesterday Nick came grocery shopping with me, so I stocked up. And this morning, I made pancakes!

Pancakes are, without a doubt, one of my favorite things to make and eat. I'm a total sucker for breakfast foods in all forms (my favorite words are "breakfast served all day") but pancakes make me especially happy. I think they make other people happy too. And I'm lucky enough to now own a Black & Decker electric griddle, courtesy of my lovely mother, that makes beautiful, evenly cooked pancakes every time. I've never had much luck with frying pan pancakes (ironic, given their name) so my griddle is a godsend. (They're super cheap at Target, if you're in the market.)

I realized that, although I make them all the time, I've never before published my pancake recipe - which is actually my mother's pancake recipe. It's not revolutionary or anything, but it makes super fluffy, delicious pancakes that are the best I've ever had. I'm going to share it with you now, but in return, you have to promise to treat the pancakes well.

That means you can only flip them once - more and they'll get tough.

That also means no store-bought frozen blueberries - they don't taste like anything. My family just happens to have a dozen blueberry bushes in our front yard, which means we have massive quantities of fresh berries in the summer and our freezer is full of flavorful frozen blueberries all winter. Unfortunately most people don't have that luxury and must buy their blueberries at a store. Fresh berries from a grocery store are fine in the summer, but they can be prohibitively expensive when they're out of season. So in the fall and winter, try something else. I love apple pancakes, my mom used to make them for my birthday (in September) all the time. Or just throw in some chocolate chips! They're never out of season, and they're always a big hit. Even better, mash up a banana and make banana-chocolate chip pancakes. Yum.

Finally, whatever you do, don't overmix the batter! Only mix until everything is combined - it should still have lumps in it. If you overmix, bad things will happen. And I will be very sad.

That being said, this is really a pretty simple recipe that uses a minimum of ingredients. You should be able to make delicious pancakes on your first try.

Mom's Blueberry Pancakes

2 cups cake flour (I have to admit, I couldn't find cake flour at the store yesterday, so I used regular old gold medal flour. It works fine, but try to get some cake flour, as it will make your pancakes lighter and fluffier.)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt (we use coarse kosher salt, if you're using regular table salt you might want a tiny bit less, as it's saltier)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I usually use light or low fat)
3 Tb melted butter (unsalted, always)
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 pint fresh blueberries, or other fruit (I've used strawberries to good effect, and I especially like apples.)

Preheat a griddle - I set mine to about 300º, but you might need to experiment to get the best setting for your griddle. The pancakes should take a few minutes to brown, otherwise the center won't cook. Play around and see what works.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

2. Add the buttermilk, butter and eggs and mix just until combined. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary. The batter should be thick but still somewhat viscous. If it's more solid than liquid (sits in a ball in the middle of the bowl, say) it won't spread out on the griddle and you might need to add a little more buttermilk. But not too much - it should be somewhere in between cake batter and bread dough, consistency wise.

3. Gently fold the blueberries in with the spatula.

4. Butter or spray your griddle. (Even if it's non-stick.) Scoop about 1/2 cup of pancake batter onto your griddle. It should spread out a bit, gradually, but still retain some height.

5. Let the pancake sit until bubbles begin to pop up on the surface. Gently lift with a spatula to check the underside, when it's a light golden brown flip the pancake over.

6. Let it sit on the second side for a couple more minutes. It should rise slightly as the center cooks. The second side usually cooks more quickly, so when you think it might be ready, take a peek to see if the bottom is light golden brown. When they're done, the pancakes should no longer be floppy. If they're too floppy, the centers aren't cooking and you need to turn your griddle down.

7. Top with some fresh fruit and maple syrup (not fake "pancake" syrup!), and enjoy!