Fluffy American Pancakes with Milk Recipe

Fluffy American Pancakes with Milk

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Pancakes made with milk are very popular across the Americas, and are also called American pancakes. And yes, they’re delicious, even with just a pat of butter. We make them now and then when the mood strikes; my family loves them with banana slices and condensed milk. Since mixing the batter and frying take little time, not much time passes between wanting them and eating them. The main thing is to have milk in the house.

I remember lots of movies and cartoons where the characters wolf down sweet pancakes. Remember Chilly Willy, the little penguin? To this day I think penguins’ favorite food is pancakes. By the way, they make them without a pan, pouring the batter straight onto the hot stovetop. Then they stack them up and pour maple syrup over them. Pancakes made with milk come out large and thick, a bit irregular in shape. You can eat them simply holding them with both hands.

Crêpes, pancakes, fritters: a dish of thin batter poured in portions onto a hot pan, a bit like syrniki. Pancakes may well have been the first flour-based food in human history. The method couldn’t be simpler: a mixture of milk, eggs and flour. The batter is poured into the pan in portions and fried quickly. Then, depending on taste, they can be topped with butter, sour cream, honey and so on.

Pancakes are served with various toppings and fillings, bananas for example, but most often they’re simply topped with jam, sour cream or the condensed milk we’ve loved since childhood. American pancakes are no harder to make than Japanese pancakes, and they’re truly simple and very tasty. As a rule, at the end you’re sorry you didn’t make more.

Ingredients

6-8 servings

For the batter

  • Flour 640 g
  • Milk 800 ml
  • Eggs 8
  • Sugar 8 tbsp (110 g)
  • Salt 1 tsp (6 g)
  • Baking powder 1 packet (4 tsp)
  • Vanillin to taste

For frying

  • Piece of pork fat 50 g

For serving

  • Maple syrup, condensed milk or sour cream with sugar to taste
  • Cinnamon, toasted sesame seeds, honey, fruit syrup, cherry jam optional

Step-by-step recipe

Batter

Classic pancakes, like any other tasty pancakes, are made from a pourable batter. Usually flour is mixed with milk or water to get the right consistency. For milk intolerance, soy, sesame or coconut milk are said to work; try it on a small amount first.

  1. Combine the dry ingredients: in a deep bowl, mix the flour, baking powder (it replaces baking soda slaked with vinegar), sugar, salt and vanillin. Mix thoroughly so the mixture is even. Baking powder is sold in packets that say how much you need per 1 kg of flour.

  1. Beat the eggs and milk until foamy. The liquid ingredients shouldn’t be cold, so take them out of the fridge half an hour ahead. Beat the room-temperature eggs and milk with a mixer until completely smooth; this is very important.

    Eggs, milk and sugar in a bowl for pancake batter.

    The egg and milk mixture should look like foam.

    Eggs and milk beaten with a mixer into foam.

  2. Combine the foam with the dry mixture: add the flour mixture in small portions and keep mixing. The batter should be completely smooth, with no lumps.

    Adding the flour mixture to the beaten eggs and milk.

    The batter should be a little thicker than for regular thin crêpes so the pancakes turn out fluffy.

    Thick batter for American pancakes.

How to fry

I remember some American movie where they cooked them by dumping the batter straight onto the hot stovetop.

  1. Get the pan ready. Put a plate for the finished pancakes next to the stove. Heat the pan over high heat; it must be very hot. Stick a piece of pork fat on a fork and use it to grease the hot pan before each new batch of pancakes.

  1. Pour the batter into the pan in portions, a small ladleful of batter for one perfect pancake.

    Pouring pancake batter into a hot pan.

  2. Fry for 20-30 seconds per side, flipping with a spatula when bubbles appear on the surface. Watch that they don’t burn and only turn a nice golden brown. The time depends on your stove and pan; about 30 seconds is enough for me. If the batter is still raw inside, turn the heat down a little and fry longer.

    Golden brown pancakes in the pan.

  3. Stack the finished pancakes on the plate; this way they stay warm longer. Never mind that they come out in different shapes; in a few minutes you won’t notice.

    Stack of fluffy American pancakes on a plate.

Serving

  1. When everything’s ready, top the pancakes with whatever you like; use your imagination. Of course, pancakes are tastiest with maple syrup. Or with condensed milk.

    Pancakes decorated with banana slices and syrup.

    But if you don’t have syrup, I recommend topping the hot pancakes with sour cream and sprinkling them with sugar. You can add a pinch of cinnamon or a few toasted sesame seeds.

    Fluffy American pancakes made with milk

    American pancakes are delicious with honey or fruit syrup, strawberry or raspberry. Or cherry jam: that’s just top class.

Calories and macros

705 kcal

Serving ≈ 290 g

  • Protein24 g14% of kcal
  • Fat19 g25% of kcal
  • Carbs104 g61% of kcal

100 g244 kcalProtein 8.3 gFat 6.6 gCarbs 36 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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