recipe: pancakes

My husband ate homemade pancakes for breakfast this morning. Am I an awesome wife or what?

No, I didn't wake up at 6 a.m. and get out the mixing bowls. I actually made the pancakes Sunday morning and froze the leftovers, so Tony will be eating well all week.

These are America's Test Kitchen pancakes. This is the first blog post in which I will extol the virtues of an ATK recipe, but it surely will not be the last. This cooking empire will take a recipe, deconstruct it, experiment with ingredients and cooking methods, conduct taste tests, and put together a whole new recipe. I consistently have success with ATK recipes. The downside is that some recipes are complicated, time-consuming, and call for ingredients you may not have in your pantry. Afterall, the recipes generally are written to produce perfect results, not easy ones.

ATK, which also produces Cook's Country, has TV shows on PBS, a monthly magazine, several cookbooks, and a comprehensive website. The pancakes recipe came out of this cookbook, an Easter present from my ma (who has become a huge ATK fan herself after I turned her on to it):

Pancakes

• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 cups milk
• 2 cups unbleached flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• oil for the pan

Whisk lemon juice and milk together.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Whisk egg and butter into the milk.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Don't overmix. A few lumps will remain.

Heat a nonstick pan over medium heat for 3 minutes. Coat the pan with oil. Use 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Cook for a couple of minutes, flip, and cook for another couple of minutes. Re-coat the pan with oil for the next batch.

<3

What could possibly make these pancakes any better? Pure maple syrup. In a jar in the shape of a maple leaf. Yum.

The batch made 16 pancakes. After we ate breakfast Sunday morning, I let the extra pancakes cool completely before I put them in the freezer. Tony reheated them in the microwave, and he reports that to reheat two pancakes, microwave on high for 60 seconds, flipping once during heating.