What's the difference between griddle cakes, pancakes, hot cakes, skillet cakes, and flapjacks?
Have you ever pondered the question, what's the difference between griddle cakes, pancakes, hot cakes, skillet cakes, and flapjacks? Well, today, I would like to tell you the answer to that specific question. Which is that all five of these food items are exactly one and the same.
Homemade country pancakes
I have decided to write two separate articles on the subject of how I make homemade pancakes from scratch. The first one was just to take you through the steps of how I make the pancake and waffle mix from scratch. Inside this article, I will be going more into depth on how I use that particular mix to make pancakes. In the other article, I also covered how to make homemade waffles from this same mix. The dry mix is the same for both, but needs to be prepared a little differently when adding the last few ingredients to make the waffle batter. (Hopefully splitting the two articles will not be confusing.)
Ingredients:
To make about six pancakes you'll need:
1 cup of the homemade pancake mix (I wrote a separate article on how I made the pancake mix.)
¾ cup water, or ¾ cup of milk if you didn't add powdered milk to the mix
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of melted butter for the batter, plus extra; the amount depends on whether you're going to cook the pancakes with butter or cooking oil and also if you like adding any additional on your pancakes once they are cooked.
Instructions:
In a bowl, whisk the eggs together; until they turn frothy. If you didn't add the powdered milk in the pancake mix, add ¾ cup of your preferred milk, otherwise add ¾ cup of water to the beaten eggs. Mix well. Then add the vanilla and stir.
Now, add the dry pre-made pancake mix to the egg mixture; whisk well, until all the clumps in the flour are gone. Then add two tablespoons of melted butter to the pancake batter; whisk well.
Next, place a cast-iron skillet, or griddle, on medium heat. Use two tablespoons of either butter, or your preferred oil to the skillet, or griddle. I use a ladle to pour my pancake batter out of, but if you don't have one, use 1/4 cup of the batter per pancake. When using a skillet, I prefer making one pancake at a time. When using a griddle, make sure that you leave ample room for each pancake to spread out.
While cooking, add extra butter or oil when the pan needs it. Flip the pancakes over once the tops of them start getting bubbles in the batter. To do this; carefully slide a spatula underneath the bottom side of the pancakes, then do a quick flip over. Finish cooking the bottom side. This doesn't take long; cooking time per each side is about one minute.
Place the pancakes on a baking tray, then place them in the oven on the warmer setting to keep them from getting cold before the batch is done cooking.
Serve with butter and your favorite syrup and enjoy!
Notes:
For a refresher, here's the list of ingredients for the smallest batch of pancake and waffle dry mix.
2 cups self-rising flour
2 tablespoons of Splenda, or sugar. Add more if you prefer your pancakes to be sweeter.
2 cups powdered milk, or leave out and use milk when making the pancakes
¼ teaspoon of no-salt substitute, or salt
You can read my article (Homemade pancake and waffle mix) to find out all the steps to making it and to find out how to prepare an extra large batch of the mix. When making the mix yourself, you're in control of how much sweetener and salt that's added. Why buy the mix when you can easily make it homemade?