the best pancakes: lemon/rosemary or blueberry; pumpkin spice; banana/raspberry or blueberry

As the warm almost summer moon air slips in the open orifaces of my house, I am thinking about pancakes and about sending out my pancake recipe to my dear friend poet and Burner nila northSun.

Among my family and friends, I am most famous for my chocolate frosting, my salads, my pancakes, my muffins, my scones, my ability to detect the most subtle onions, and my pancakes.

Pancakes, yes, pancakes, a bane of my youth since I always hated pancakes.

That became a challenge–how could you bed a man if you couldn’t make pancakes in the morning? (OK, bedding him wasn’t the problem, feeding him in the morning and keeping him for a few days might be.)

So I figured out that what I didn’t like was traditional, white flour kinda pancakes. What I liked was pancakes made from muffin mix, especially cornmuffin mix.

I was reciting and selling poetry at the Renaissance Faire in Larkspur Colorado when I started making pancakes from a muffin mix and frying them in butter on the backpacking stove just outside the tent on rainy mornings.

Over the years, and with a little help from a Krusteez obsessed lover, I have finessed my recipe, developed it, and become a masterful flipper of pancakes along the way and the many miles. I have flipped pancakes at Burning Man, in the Mojave Desert, in the Sierra, in Death Valley, in Big Sur, in Wyoming, and many states between, and on many special occasions:

Last Sunday, Father’s Day, found me flipping banana corn blueberry pancakes along the Rincon on Pacific Coast HIghway, high tide splashing spray on my face and seasoning the cakes.

So here, finally revealed, is my secret pancake recipe, my easy pancake recipe, with a variety of variations:

>4 eggs beaten (2 or 3 ok)

add to eggs

>1 cup wet (in order of preference: buttermilk, cowmilk, almond, rice, soy)

add to wet

>1 or 2 ripe banana/s sliced then mashed in with the eggs OR 1/2 can pumpkin w/1 tsp spice OR juice 1/2 lemon (Meyer’s preferred–they’re juicier and sweeter)

add

> 1 cup cornbread mix (we use Trader Joe’s brand)

> 1 cup pancake/baking mix (we use Trader Joe’s brand)

optional: add 1/4 cup almond meal; add 1/4 cup flax meal

melt 2-3 T butter into frying pan; pour into batter

DON’T overmix after you combine the wet and the dry; simply make sure all the batter is moistened plus a few swift stirs.

FOR: lemon/rosemary/blueberry:
pour 1/2 cup batter into pan
scatter blueberries as desired
flip
sprinkle sprigs of fresh rosemary needles on top of second side

The trick to adding fresh blueberries or raspberries is to drop them gently on the cake right after you pour the batter into the pan. (If you add them to the batter in the bowl and stir them in, they smoosh, they bleed, etc)

I’d like to get even more rosemary flavor so I may try adding a drop or two of rosemary essential oil and see how it comes out!

Since I also don’t like syrup, I serve these with fresh fruit on top–strawberries, peaches, etc, whatever is in season.

Enjoy!

PS I hope to add some flipping pictures soon!