International Pancakes

Ever wonder why there is a chain restaurant that serves breakfast all day (clearly it's a wonderful idea- but can be awful misleading)? Recently my English housemates wanted American pancakes. I scoffed at the idea... pancakes known around the world--surely they aren't only an "American" food. Then I began to ponder...IHOP. Those chain restaurants you find peppered through out the states, but rarely seen anywhere in Europe. So can they really call themselves the International House of Pancakes? Pancakes are not an international food. Sure in France they use the same ingredients...(less flour i think) and they call them crepes. These are generally eaten with jam spread and rolled up like a burrito (yum another "Mexican/American treat for a later date). So breakfast rules state if it's flat, it's a crepe and if it's fluffy, a pancake and when made with Canadian maple syrup; call it a flapjack. I'm not even going to go into details with traditions of adding blueberries and bananas to the batter for all out other sorts of flapjacks. And as my (very American) brother will tell you, no pancake is better than a chocolate chip pancake with whipped topping!

In case you were wondering just how to make "American" pancakes, I have included the recipe below: (to me though, we don't call them "American pancakes" we just call them pancakes (kind of like Brazilian nuts---in Brazil they just call them nuts..hehe)

American Pancake  aka. Betty Crocker recipe

1 egg
1 c. buttermilk
2 Tbsp salad oil or  shortening (aka Lard--all the Brits just scratched their heads puzzled) 
1Tbsp sugar ( here in the UK this gets complicated---find whatever they call the finest ground sugar bits)
1 c. (self rising) flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda (Lord help me if I know if it's called by any other name --sodium bicarbonate--possibly?)

Mix first 3 ingredients well, then add dry ingredients. Batter will thicken upon standing.  Pour batter into  heated skillet or frying pan that has been coated with butter or oil to 'fry' pancake. Flip once and waa lah, you have yourself a flapjack! (If added bananas, smush them into batter and mix before putting in pan--also add blueberries or chocolate chips into batter after mixing all above ingredients). Enjoy! Get creative!

bon appetite!