The 2008 Summer Pancake Games

Today we (meaning my family: Mom, Dad, brother J and brother D) took two enormous carloads of stuff out to my new apartment, which we've dubbed "H2." We had to dub it something easy to say, because we were getting sick of saying "the apartment" all the time. That is a lot of syllables, and let me tell you, when you're having a twenty-minute conversations about your plan to go to "the apartment" and you have to say the words "the apartment" a gazillion times in that twenty-minute period, you get kind of sick of saying it. It's exhausting! So we named the place "H2," which stands for "Home #2" and is infinitely easier to say.

Anyway, the most important, most precious, cargo in those carloads was, of course, all my books (because I am a complete and utter bibliophile, which is a fancy way of saying book lover, we could only take about half of them on this trip. The others will go sometime next week).

The second mose important/precious cargo was the window air conditioner. That's right, folks, my new pad has no A/C. Well, it does now. Because my poor dad spent, like, two hours setting it up in the 90 degree heat. I was incapacitated and unable to help because I very foolishly decided to help my mom clean, in the 90 degree heat, without ever using my inhaler. About an hour in my chest started to hurt because my lungs couldn't take in enough oxygen and I started to get kind of heat stroke-ish (another thing I am very susceptible to). So then I had to sit down under the ceiling fan with a cold bottle of Gatorade under my neck so that I wouldn't pass out and have to be rushed to the ER.

I kind of felt like a heel, sitting there chilling with my Gatorade pillow while everyone else was working their butts off to set up MY apartment.

But of course, when it was time to go out to lunch, they unintentionally got me back!

There is this fantastic little restaurant like, three blocks from H2. It's called First Watch and is a "daytime cafe," so it's only open until 2:30, and they serve all kinds of great breakfast and lunch specials. The place is all bright and cheery, the waiters and waitresses are super friendly, and it has free Wi-Fi. Plus, major bonus, if you click on the link to their website, they have a "Gluten-Free" page, where they list every menu item that us gluten-less people can eat. All their meats, even their bacon and ham and sausage and stuff, is GF. Awesome, or awesome? We first discovered this little gem when we went apartment hunting and found H2, and so every time we go out to H2 with a load of stuff, we go have lunch at the daytime cafe. (See how many times I just said H2? Can you imagine how much more cumbersome this paragraph would have been if I'd had to say "the apartment" all those times? Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.)

So anyway, we go there for lunch today. D gets french toast. Not really knife-in-the-heart material, because I can make my own french toast that tastes pretty decent using my Glutino bread (this is the best store-bought gluten-free bread I've ever tasted. When you toast it, it practically tastes normal. Not corny at all). So that doesn't really bother me. But then J, who is of course sitting right across from me in the booth, sees that the description of their pancakes says that they are "as big as we can make them and still have them fit on a plate." To J (who also bought the ten-pound bar of chocolate from my last post), this was a personal challenge. He ordered the pancakes.

And I'm not going to lie: they were amazing. They were seriously at least 8 inches in diameter, and he got the tall stack (three cakes). He only ate about a third of them. And this boy is a black hole, my friends.

They were this perfect, buttery yellow on the inside, and I could tell just by looking that they were light and fluffy, just like pancakes should be. And the smell? I haven't smelled pancakes that good since the last time I was at Bob Evans (which I never go to anymore, just because I can't take the pancake smell. No joke. I've had to give up Bob Evans because it just smells too damn good in there).

I wanted a bite of those pancakes more than I wanted my next breath.

So what do I do? Thankfully, I didn't eat any. I stayed strong. But I did torment myself further. Ds french toast had come with a bowl of blueberry compote, which he refused to eat. I say to J: "why don't you put some of that on your pancakes?"

So he did.

I believe the puddle of drool I left under the table was comparable to the Atlantic.

Pancakes are incredibly difficult for me to make. I mean, I can make them, but they're kind of rubbery or kind of doughy or kind of flat. Sometimes they taste good, but they never taste like real pancakes. It's extremely distressing. Especially today, when I wanted restaurant pancakes so desperately.

Therefore and hence, I am issuing myself a challenge. I am going to make good, real pancakes this summer. Now I know, this summer is half over. But I don't care. I am going to make restaurant-quality, gluten-free pancakes.

I have already collected a variety of recipes. First I'm going to try the standard Betty Crocker recipe that I've used in the past. I always just substitued GF flour for regular flour, but this time I'm going to use the magic ingredient that I discovered a few weeks ago: cake flour. I don't know how this is going to work; the pancakes may come out like some abomination (I just saw The Hulk, sorry). But it worked so well for my cupcakes/cake that I have moderate hopes.

If that doesn't work for me, there are three recipes on Gluten-Free Girl's website that I'll try (look under "Breakfast Foods"). I will, of course, keep you posted. For now, I'll include the Betty Crocker recipe below. If you decide to try it and it works for you, or if you have a recipe that would adapt well, or if you can con a restaurant into giving you their recipe (I have yet to acheive this feat), please let me know!

And so, the Pancake Games torch is lit . . . Godspeed!

GLUTEN-FREE PANCAKES (taken from Betty Crocker's Cookbook)

1 egg
1 1/2 C flour (I'll be using cake flour, which is 2 tablespoons of corn starch for every cup of flour)
3/4 C milk
1 T shortening, melted, or vegetable oil (I usually use oil, because I'm lazy and it's easier, but this time I'm going to use Blue Bonnet margarine. My mom swears by it in her baked goods; she refuses to use any other brand)
1 T sugar
3 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

Beat egg with hand beater until fluffy; beat in remaining ingredients just until smooth. Pour batter onto hot griddle in 3-tablespoonfuls. Cook pancakes until puffed and dry around edges. Turn and cook other side until golden brown.

Makes about nine 4-inch pancakes.