hornby island pancakes.

{Pancakes, lookin' all fancy.}

I used to have a bit of a tenuous relationship with pancakes. My sister loves them and used to want them all the time when we were little, so I got a little sick of them after a while. I'm into them again though, and love the recipe from my childhood. It's a recipe that came from a cookbook from Hornby Island (maybe the Seabreeze Lodge cookbook?) and since we were there a week ago, I thought I'd whip some up this weekend. Here is the recipe, in case you'd like to try them!

In a bowl, combine the following:
1 1/2 cups of flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt

Separate the white from one egg (preserving the yolk for later). Beat the egg white, but not too hard (no peaks or anything). (Also, use an proper beater! We have a really well stocked kitchen but the one thing we don't have is an egg beater. For some reason I haven't got around to buying one. Every time I have to do it by hand I curse myself for this, but I digress.)

Set the egg white aside and combine:
1 1/2 cups of milk
1 or 2 teaspoons of oil, with
the reserved egg yolk

Add the wet stuff to the dry stuff and mix until the batter is fairly runny and has few lumps. Add the beaten egg white, and fold it into the batter (as much as one can fold an egg white into runny batter, that is). You don't want to mix the batter too much at this point or you'll lose the fluffiness that the beaten egg white brings.

Heat a skillet until when drops of water are thrown on it they jump away instead of steaming. (Please tell me you know what I mean by that. I'm at a bit of a loss to describe it. The pan needs to be HOT.)

Ladle the batter onto the skillet and turn the heat down.

Let the first side cook until air bubbles in the pancakes form and then pop. Flip the pancake over.

Cook the second side until golden brown. Keep the pancakes in a warmed oven until you get through cooking all of the batter.

Serve with whatever you like on your pancakes and enjoy! They should be nice and fluffy.

(I love yogurt on my pancakes and fruit. And syrup. And butter. What do you put on yours?)

P.S. I realized that I switched memory cards halfway through last weekend's trip, so I've updated my Denman Island post to include some more photos. Even one with an orca in it!