The American version of pancakes – pancakes – was invented a long time ago. Today, the popularity of this dish all over the world is explained by the ease of preparation, the incredible taste and delicate structure of the dough, the variety of cooking options and combinations. Pancakes are prepared with milk, kefir, with the addition of bananas, oatmeal, chocolate and much more. They eat pancakes with honey, berries, powdered sugar, jam, icing. Any cooking option is quick and ideal for breakfast, as it is able to fully energize and good mood for the whole day. There are recipes for diet pancakes that can be eaten without compromising health and the risk of getting unwanted inches around the waist. Pancakes are ideal for many people who are losing weight because they are cooked in a dry frying pan without adding oil during frying, which reduces the calorie content of the finished dish and its carcinogenic properties.
The history of pancakes dates back to the time when the first Scots moved to America. So it is quite possible that Scotland is the ancestor of pancakes. But today, all over the world, the dish is known as American pancakes, since it was this country that made a cult of these simple rounds. America even opened the world’s first chain restaurant specializing in breakfast, whose signature dish was pancakes.
Pancakes with milk
Pancakes, the recipe of which anyone knows, are ordinary thick pancakes, consisting of flour, sugar, eggs and milk. Depending on the proportions of each ingredient, a different thickness of pancakes is obtained, so photos of dishes on the Internet can sometimes differ from each other. If you add a little baking powder, salt and vegetable oil to milk pancakes, they will turn out to be more fluffy and airy. It is customary to add cocoa powder to such pancakes, which can give pancakes a chocolate flavor. In order for all the ingredients of the pancake to be perfectly mixed, cooks advise to separately combine the dry ingredients of the dough, separately the liquid ones, and then gradually introduce the dry mixture into the liquid. They are baked quite easily: a few tablespoons of dough are laid out on a heated Teflon pan without oil (the oil in the dough will not allow the pancakes to burn to the surface of the pan). The number of spoons for each pancake is calculated individually, depending on the diameter of the pan and the thickness of the product that the chef wants to end up with. It should be borne in mind that too much dough can make the pancake not fluffy, but thick and heavy. Bake the pancake on one side until bubbles begin to form on it. After that, the pancake is turned over for a while. Ready-made pancakes are laid out in a stack, which is then convenient to pour over with jam, honey, chocolate icing. A classic American pancake sauce is maple syrup.
Sometimes American pancakes are prepared a little differently than classic Slavic pancakes. For example, pancakes on kefir instead of milk will turn out more magnificent, and their benefits due to the fermented milk product and the fact that they are prepared without baking powder will increase significantly. To prepare kefir pancakes, you need to take 1 glass of kefir, 1 egg, 1 tablespoon of sugar (more if you want the dough to be sweeter, or you can even replace sugar with honey), a glass of flour, a little vanilla or vanilla sugar, a pinch of baking soda and 50 grams of vegetable oil.
The step by step recipe for these pancakes is as follows:
- Kefir is poured into the pan and placed on the stove over a small fire. After that, you need to pour soda into kefir and wait until the heated kefir extinguishes it and rises with foam.
- The pan is removed from the stove and egg, vanillin and sugar are added to the heated kefir with quenched soda. The mixture is whipped with a mixer. Then, through a sieve, you need to sift the flour into the dough and again beat everything with a mixer. At the very end, vegetable oil is added to the dough and mixed with a spoon.
- The process of baking all pancakes is the same – a Teflon pan without oil, an adjustable amount of dough and waiting for bubbles to appear to turn the dish.
In the photo of pancake recipes on the Internet, you can often see that butter is present among the ingredients. Sometimes ready-made pancakes are smeared with it, but this is completely optional – the dish does not turn out to be overdried even without it.
Banana Pancakes
Classic pancakes often require a variety of additives, so for a more dietary use of American pancakes, it is advisable to immediately cook them with some kind of filler. Banana pancakes have already become classics for homemade breakfasts, as they are very fragrant, satisfying and quick to prepare. One of the recipes for banana pancakes suggests preparing a dish that is too high in calories, but such a tasty dish. It will need bananas, eggs, flour, baking powder, milk, vegetable oil, sugar and salt. The products are quite high-calorie, however, after having breakfast like a pancake, the appetite will not come again soon, which is also a plus for the process of losing weight. This recipe makes very fluffy pancakes, so sometimes you can even make a cake out of them, using the resulting pancakes instead of cakes.
But banana pancakes are even easier to make at home, even without milk. Just two eggs and one banana make a hearty and delicious breakfast. These ingredients are put into a blender and blended until smooth. This is the only pancake recipe that calls for adding oil to the pan while frying. Just 1 tablespoon of butter or olive oil is heated over a fire and the dough is poured into the pan in the amount of 1-2 tablespoons. Banana pancakes are fried until golden brown on both sides and served hot with tea or coffee.
Chocolate and oatmeal pancakes
Another popular type of pancakes are chocolate pancakes with oatmeal. They are prepared mainly on kefir, and not on milk, since oatmeal is steamed with kefir – in this case, they swell better. The ingredients of these pancakes are:
- 50 grams of oatmeal;
- 250 grams of kefir;
- 100 grams of flour;
- 50 grams of sugar;
- 15 grams of cocoa;
- 1 egg;
- half a teaspoon of baking powder;
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil.
As mentioned above, oatmeal must be poured with kefir and left for 15 minutes. An egg, cocoa, butter, sugar are added to the oat-kefir mixture and everything is thoroughly mixed. Separately, mix the sifted flour with the baking powder and gradually add the resulting mixture to the oat-kefir mixture. The pancake dough is ready, they are baked as standard in a dry heated frying pan until bubbles appear, and then turned over.
Chocolate pancakes can also be prepared according to the classic recipe, simply by adding a little cocoa to the dough, but together with oatmeal, the dish turns out to be more nutritious and better absorbed by the body.
Diet pancakes
Very often, while dieting, it is necessary to prepare the right full breakfasts in order to energize the body and not make it constantly demand unhealthy snacks. Dietary pancakes in this matter will compete even with cereals, since they themselves are prepared on the basis of oatmeal. Oat pancakes with milk contain only 186 kilocalories per 100 grams of product, which allows them to be consumed by most diets. At the same time, they contain enough useful substances for a full charge of energy – 7 grams of protein, 5 grams of fat and 28 grams of healthy carbohydrates. For the test you will need 150 grams of oatmeal, 100 grams of milk and 1 egg. Grind the oatmeal in a blender bowl to the state of flour and pour the heated milk into it. After the mixture has stood for 5 minutes, you need to introduce a pre-beaten egg into it. All ingredients should be passed through a blender to obtain a homogeneous mass. Diet pancakes are baked in the same way as everyone else – in a dry, heated frying pan.
American pancakes have taken root well in many countries of the world, thanks to their deliciousness and ease of preparation. Each housewife can have her own recipe for pancakes at home, you can add all the new ingredients to them and make them more satisfying or dietary. This feature of the dish largely determined its success. Today, American pancakes have become a favorite breakfast in European cuisines, and a variety of additives to them allow you to eat a new version of your favorite dish every morning.