One of my all-time favorite breakfast foods to make is what we in my family call Hawaiian pancakes. There is nothing inherently Hawaiian about these particular pancakes. In fact, they are so UN-Hawaiian that the other, more common name for them is Dutch babies. No offense to the Dutch, but I struggle to see any resemblance between the two places, and so we call them Hawaiian pancakes because on a dreary Bay Area morning, nothing is more welcome than a temporary escape to the Islands. An escape to Amsterdam just pales in comparison…

I have been making these since I was old enough to turn on the stove. There are 4 ingredients and 3 steps to making these, and I had memorized the recipe by the time I was 12. In all my years of making it, I have experienced great success and only mild disappointment when the finished product failed to achieve the essential puffy crown peeking over the edge of the cast iron skillet. But it had always been delicious, light and fluffy on the inside, crispy on the bottom from the pool of butter, with a slight crunch to the top. In all my years of making it, the final product had never deviated so far from the intended result as to render it unrecognizable.

But that has all changed. And the culprit (because there must be someone to blame beside myself) is whole wheat flour.
Now, I was raised on whole wheat bread, multigrain pancakes are much more appetizing to me than Bisquik based ones, and I love the nutty flavor and rich texture of whole wheat pasta. I subscribe to the belief that whole wheat is better in nearly every situation, but today I found an example of when it is not suitable. It must be said that I am not a baker, and were I baker I might have seen this coming, might have known better than to even think about using whole wheat. But we were out of white flour, visions of Butch babies danced in my head (wow, that’s not appropriate) and the oven was already preheating. So I found a mostly empty, but just full enough, bag of whole wheat flour in the drawer and set to work. I even diligently documented to the process, a step I am often wont to forgo. The oven was ready, it was all mixed, the butter (or in this case, Earth Balance) was melted into a delicious pool in the cast iron skillet. In the batter went to the pan, and the pan into the oven. Timer set, I cleaned up and made some coffee.

17 minutes later, everything I thought I knew about this particular pancake was destroyed by the introduction of whole wheat flour into the equation. Instead of fluffy, golden goodness, I was left with what amounted to a dense, flavorless whole wheat pancake swimming in a pool of butter. My belief in myself, in my abilities as a breakfast maker, was shattered! How could I have overlooked such an elementary truth about baking? What possessed me to continue on in my breakfast quest, ignoring the realities of white vs whole wheat flours. Why couldn’t I have just had cereal?!

I will recover from this. I will go to the store and make them correctly. I will document the true Hawaiian pancake later, so that you may see what it is supposed to look like. Breakfast will be safe once more. But from now on I will avoid whole wheat flour unless the recipe says so, I’ll make sure I have all the ingredients before I commit to a preheated oven, and I will weigh more thoroughly the pros and cons of substitution before diving headlong into a recipe without a thought to the consequences. There’s enough blind leaping going on in my real life at the moment, I don’t need it in my kitchen too.

So, even though I failed miserably, I was able to get some good photos out of the whole ordeal, so it wasn’t all for naught. And the recipe is below. I wish you better luck than I had this time around.

So, now for the recipe, because an excuse is necessary for that pool of butter in the picture below (or, in this case, Earth Balance). 
  • 1/2 cup of all-purpose WHITE flour (unbleached)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup of milk. Soy milk works fabulously as well.
  • 1/2 stick of butter
  • Some nutmeg, if desired and available.
  • A 10″ cast iron skillet.
  • Whatsoever toppings you desire, but in our family we generally use lemon/lime and powdered sugar. Jam is delicious, any sort of berry syrup, or just heaps of butter.

Preheat the over to 425° F and mix the eggs, flour, milk and nutmeg if using it in a bowl. Mix until mostly combined, but leave some lumps. In a cast iron skillet, melt the butter over med-low heat. Then pour in the batter, and transfer the pan into the over. Cook 15-20 minutes until light, fluffy and golden. Remove from oven (be sure to use an oven mitt as the pan will be VERY hot, duh), cut into slices (we do quarters, when we’re being generous), squeeze some citrus on, sprinkle or douse with powdered sugar, eat immediately.

 
 
Music: Wilco – California Stars
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