Pancakes from scratch? Sift the flour!

So I had an unpacking frenzy in my kitchen and got a ton of stuff put away in my newly-lined shelves. One of the things was my bottle of syrup. Which of course made me think of pancakes and french toast. I don't have bread, so I decided to make pancakes, then I realized I didn't have pancake mix either. But it occurred to me that people must have been making pancakes long before Krusteaz decided to make life easier. So I found a recipe on Allrecipes.com and decided to try it out. (Recipe here)

I read some of the comments first and made a few modifications to the recipe: I added a half teaspoon of vanilla, and reduced the salt to 3/4 a teaspoon.

I sifted the flour twice as advised by a commenter, then added the other dry ingredients, and sifted again. I only intended to sift once, but I was tired and just kept sifting. It happens. Also, you don't need a flour sifter, just use a sieve or even a colander if you're desperate. I measured out a cup and a half (which is what the recipe called for), sifted that, then measured out again after the first sift. I had some left over because it fluffs up, so I just put that back in the flour canister.

My flour was soft and fluffy:

I created a little well in the middle and set aside the dry mix. Next was the wet mix. I never have milk in the fridge, but luckily I had gotten some shelf-stable liquid milk at Winco last month, so I dug that out from my cabinet. If you've never had shelf-stable milk, get some. It keeps for a year or something and doesn't need to be refrigerated until it is opened. Super glad I had it, because I was really craving pancakes. AND it happened to be whole milk, so I knew my pancakes would be delicious.

So I beat the egg for a moment with the mixer, added 3tb of melted, unsalted butter and the vanilla, beat for another moment (and I really mean that, like count one-mississippi and turn off the mixer. You don't want to overbeat the egg). Then, I added the milk, beat for a bit longer, and poured it into the well in my dry mixture. It was wet enough to stir with a spoon and it was a nice, smooth texture. Then I dug out the griddle. I got this griddle for ten bucks last Black Friday, and never used it because my counters in my old place were all too small (yes, seriously). So this was an exciting moment for me.

I am a horrible pancake maker. I can never get it to pour right or thin enough, no matter how thin/thick the batter is. I am also a terrible pancake flipper. I chase the things all over the pan and usually end up smashing three of them together into one big super pancake while I'm trying to flip one. So there are no pics of that particular adventure. Anyway, after a few minutes, I was finished, and sat down to my table to eat.

The problem with cooking from a full recipe when you're a singleton is that there are always leftovers. Sigh. And reheated pancakes never taste the same, but oh well. I'm not winning a medal anytime soon for pancake aesthetics, but dang it if these pancakes weren't the softest, fluffiest pancakes I'd ever had. Sifting the flour really works! I swear, it was like eating fresh Wonder Bread.

If you have never made pancakes from scratch, I highly recommend trying it out sometime!