fig. a: out of the berry patch
fig. b: bloobs & black raspberries
If you’re going to have an absolutely bonkers berry year—and we’re definitely experiencing one in our little neck of the woods right now—there are a few crucial recipes you need to go along with it. And in my mind, one of them’s gotta be a proper pancake recipe.
Sure, you can fold berries directly into your batter to make, say, blueberry pancakes—you might even have a favourite blueberry pancake recipe on hand—but I’m talking about a “plain” (but definitely not plain) pancake recipe. One that you can adorn with an unholy combination of butter, syrup, and freshly macerated berries as they come hot off the griddle. One that will serve you well even when fresh, local berries have gone out of season. One that’s truly heavenly.
fig. c: out of “the grocery store”
In this case, the recipe I have in mind is one that first appeared in Canal House Cooking no. 6 (“The Grocery Store”) way back in 2011. But when Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer—the prodigious talents behind Canal House—compiled a year’s worth of their best recipes for their collection Canal House Cooks Everyday the following year, it’s not one that made the cut, strangely. Hamilton & Hirsheimer were generous enough to share Hirsheimer’s family recipe for “Buttermilk Love Cakes” in their book—and that’s a blessing, there’s no doubt about it—but this recipe is similarly phenomenal, and it’s maybe just a tiny bit easier to get exceptional results with, because it’s maybe just a tiny bit easier to source good sour cream (which this recipe calls for) than it is to source good buttermilk (which the “love cakes” call for). (Then again, maybe not—depends on where you live.)
fig. d: these gorgeous pancakes are a delicious part of a complete breakfast
Like virtually all of the very best pancakes, these sour cream pancakes are light as a feather and anything but banal. These are pancakes that turn out beautifully, they’re supremely flavourful, and they marry wonderfully with the mixture of raspberries, blueberries, and black raspberries we’ve been enjoying in recent days.
fig. e: the red & the blue
So without any further ado…
Canal House Cooking’s Sour Cream Pancakes
1 cup sour cream*
3 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoon melted butter
7 tablespoons cake flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Vegetable oil
Whisk the sour cream and egg yolks together in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk in the melted butter. Put the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt into a sieve and sift into the sour cream mixture. Lightly whisk until just mixed [a few lumps won’t hurt anything, according to Hamilton & Hirsheimer].
Put the egg whites into a clean mixing bowl and beat with a whisk until soft peaks form (this takes a bit of elbow grease, but it’s worth it). Use a rubber spatula to fold them into the batter. Please, for the love of god, don’t overwork the batter. Keep it light and fluffy.
Pour a little oil on a nonstick griddle or large skillet. Wipe out the oil with a paper towel, leaving only the thinnest film. Heat the griddle over medium or even medium-low heat [depends on your range] until hot. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter on the griddle. Cook until little holes appear on the surface and the cooked side of the pancake—go ahead and lift the edge to check!—is golden brown, about 1 minute on each side, if your griddle is at the proper temperature. Slather on the butter, a few good glugs of real maple syrup, and and a heap of freshly macerated and/or fresh berries if you have them on hand.
Devour.
{Makes about sixteen 4-inch pancakes.}
[adapted ever so slightly from Melissa Hamilton & Christopher Hirsheimer’s Canal House Cooking, No. 6, 2011]
fig. f: unholy mess
Keep your berry mixture simple.
Mix together whatever fresh, ripe, local berries you have on hand (as long as they’re nice and sweet—like raspberries, blueberries, black raspberries, red currants, and blackberries**). Depending on the amount of berries, stir in a tablespoon, or two (or three, or four…) of white sugar (the basic formula we use is about one tablespoon of sugar per cup of berries). Crush the berries a little as you stir the sugar in evenly, bruising them so that they release their juices more readily. Don’t overdo it with the sugar, but, if you’re going to sweeten them at all, don’t underdo it either. This berry mix should be an absolute joy to eat and it should produce a fair bit of beautiful berry syrup, too.
If you prefer, do a mixture of macerated berries and entirely fresh berries, like the combination of macerated raspberries and fresh blueberries you see in the accompanying photographs.
And if you’re a purist, go ahead and top your pancakes with the simple pleasures of fresh, raw, unsweetened berries. We won’t judge.
But, please, while berries are at their peak—as they are right now—insist on fresh, local berries if you can—preferably ones you harvested or foraged yourself.
aj
* We prefer Cabot Creamery sour cream whenever we can get our hands on it.
** Basically, you want to avoid things like gooseberries and blackcurrants, which are essentially inedible in their raw state (at least by humans).