pancakes (This is good.)

Published: Thu, 12/04/25

** remember the butter * screamy fight * substitution * remember the butter **

PancaKes (This is good.) (pancake with pat of butter) / This recipe comes from America's Test Kitchen's The Best Recipe cookbook, although i'm sure I no longer follow their famously detail-oriented instructions. It's a good, sturdy ingredients list that will stand up to the odd substitution if you're out of something (see "milk" paragraph below!) and reliably turns out yummy pancakes in pretty close to no time. / (drawings of ingredients) 2 c milk, 1
T lemon juice, an egg, 3 T butter, 2 c flour, 1/2 t baking soda, 1/2 t salt, 2 t baking powder, 2T sugar, and oil! for cooking

Just whisk the lemon juice into the milk. Melt the butter. Mix the dry ingredients together while the butter cools. Then whisk butter & egg into milk, & stir together wet and dry. Voilá!

(Carolyn whisking milk and egg in a glass measuring cup. small ingrid and iris watching from counter level. in background, bowl of melted butter in microwave). / Often I don't have lemons (or even bottled lemon juice), so I replace half or all of the milk with yogurt, or sour cream, or some combo of those, or I use powdered buttermilk. The pancakes don't seem to mind. / One key to great pancakes is not forgetting the butter in the microwave.

(carolyn reaching for bowl of melted butter in microwave; in foreground, table set with big pile of pancakes, syrup, plates, forks, knives. Carolyn: AUUUUGH!!? Someone in the other room: What? Carolyn: The #*#*$& butter!)

We had the fluffiest, lightest pancakes EVER one day when Ingrid and Iris were about 2 and 4. / I poured the wet ingredients into the dry, and immediately a huge fight broke out over who would get to do the stirring. It was about a half hour before we got through the whole calming and reconciliation process. / (Iris: MINE. M I N E. Ingrid: MINE! NOOOOOOOO! ) (Tears on both girls, both pulling on a spoon) Carolyn: speech bubble with peace sign in it)

I don't remember who got to stir the batter in the end, but I remember those pancakes were top notch.

So put the wet and dry together, then go have a screamy fight and/or a tantrum before you stir them. / (bowl of unmixed ingredients sitting peacefully on counter in front of window with blue sky and green trees) / (six pancakes steaming on the griddle) / (in foreground, pancakes, syrup, and butter; in background, little iris and ingrid with smiles and big eyes).

I love it when you send This is good. to others who might like it. Thank you!

...

If you got this message from a friend, please sign up here if you want! I send new comics about every two weeks and reruns in between. It's always free, and I don't share your email address or use it for for anything else.

...

The archive shows some past messages, and my website has news about what else I've been making. (Biggest news: My book of poems about oil & 1990s Anchorage teendom is coming out in September 2026.) Thanks for reading!

3304 44th Ave. S.
Minneapolis MN 55406
US

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options