Fannie Farmer Griddlecakes

Time for another post in the “Starting in December” style. For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check out that blog, owned and operated by my colleague Marguerite, you’re missing out on some good writing, some good design, and some good recipes.

Today we’re going to tackle that staple of Sunday morning breakfast, the pancake. Or if you prefer, hotcake, flapjack, or even griddlecake, as they’re called in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, the source of this recipe. Debra and I got this cookbook as a wedding gift, and we’ve used it so much that it is literally falling apart. Mind you, this is not a cookbook for the faint of heart, but it definitely is a cookbook for those who’d like to give clogging up those arteries a shot.

The griddlecake recipe, even though it has a lot of ingredients (in contrast to Bisquick, egg, and milk), is very simple. You mix your powders, you mix your liquids (Is egg a liquid? Close enough), you melt your butter, you mix it all together, throw it on the hot griddle, and voila, you’ve got the best tasting pancakes you’ve ever had in your life.

And if you eat breakfast late enough, you’re covered all the way to dinner. Because as an old friend once said, when you eat these babies, you’re definitely laying down a base.

Fannie Farmer Griddlecakes

The amount of milk you use will determine how thick these griddlecakes are. Start with the smaller amount suggested and add more if the batter seems too thick (speaking of the batter being too thick, could you believe that game Pat Burrell had last night?). Try to have the milk at room temperature before mixing and take care not to overbeat: a few lumps in the batter will do no harm (unless you’re Pat Burrell). You can make lighter, fluffier griddlecakes by separating the egg, beating the white, and folding it in last (whoa – that’s a lot of trouble for pancakes). Serve with maple syrup or honey.


½ - ¾ cup milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 egg
1 cup white flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon salt

Beat the milk, butter, and egg lightly in a mixing bowl. Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt and add them all at once to the first mixture, stirring just enough to dampen the flour. Lightly butter or grease a griddle or frying pan and set over moderate heat until a few drops of cold water sprinkled on the pan form rapidly moving globules. If you wish small pancakes (and what would be the point of that?), drop about 2 tablespoons of the batter onto the pan, or pour about ¼ cup from a measuring cup if larger pancakes are desired (this isn’t rocket science…it’s really OK to make them as big or small as you’d like). Bake on the griddle until the cakes are full of bubbles on the top and the undersides are lightly browned. Turn with a spatula and brown the other sides. Place finished griddlecakes on a warm plate in a 200 degree oven until you have enough to begin serving (or, just throw ‘em on a plate and yell out, “hey! They’re ready!”).

Enjoy!