Scratch Pancakes

Ok, I know it's really easy to go to the store and buy pancake mix. But I read the ingredients and decided I would see how difficult it would be to do at home, from real food. Turns out, it isn't hard at all.

1 cup all-purpose flour (I used the unbleached kind)
2 Tablespoons white sugar
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 egg
1 cup milk
2 Tablespoons oil (I used corn, but vegetable would work too)

Mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix the egg, milk, and oil together in a different bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients bowl and pour the wet stuff into that well. It's going to overflow, so don't worry. Now whisk everything together until it's smooth, and you have pancake batter. (Not really much more complicated than "Pour our powder made out of weird stuff into bowl, add milk (or water, or oil)," and *I* think worth an extra few minutes)

Heat over medium heat a lightly oiled pan. I do mean lightly. The first batch of pancakes I did didn't turn out nearly as well as the second or third, because my pan had too much oil in it. Honestly, you might be better off just using a generous amount of cooking spray.

I like small pancakes (I will post a picture soon of my pancakes) -- about the circumference of a baseball. So I used a slightly large regular spoon to drop my batter on the pan. This will produce about 12 baseball sized pancakes. If you want fewer, bigger pancakes, you can used a 1/4 cup measure -- it's what the recipe actually called for.

Anyway, put your batter in the pan, let it sit until it is firm enough on the bottom that you won't break it by flipping, and flip. Let cook, and I usually flip mine a couple times to keep the browning even on both sides. Then I poke it with a toothpick to make sure it's done in the middle, too.

YOU know what to do after that! Butter and syrup! (next on my list -- figure out how to make my own syrup)

Thanks, Allrecipes.com!