Food Fight

Is it a good idea to make
pancake batter ahead of time?

I’ve made my share of pancakes in this life, and have always mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just before ladling the batter onto the griddle. Someone (my mother?) once told me that pancake batter shouldn’t "sit" for too long because it would go flat, and I never questioned what sounded like wisdom.

Wrong again, or, at least, not completely right. According to Howard Hillman in his book Kitchen Science : A Guide to Knowing the... , the best pancake strategy is to mix all of the ingredients gently until combined but still fairly lumpy, then place the bowl of batter in the refrigerator for an hour or so. The batter will achieve the proper degree of smoothness all on its own as the lumps of flour dissolve. The gluten in the flour will relax and not become overdeveloped (we hate it when that happens), and the cold temperature will stop the baking powder from being too active.

Thanks, Mr. Hillman. Even Mom was wrong once in a while.

Last Bite

The Perfect Cup of Coffee

I don’t know about you, but I get up early in the morning on weekdays: precisely 5:20 a.m. It’s dark. We heat with wood, and the fire has long since gone out, so it’s cold. The first thing I do, even before waking our two scholars so they can catch the school bus at 6:20 a.m., is put the kettle on. While the water is heating, I take our new puppy outside for a brief foray into the snow, come back in and get the fire going, and take the dogs upstairs to help me wake the slumbering teenagers. By this time, the water is about to boil. I put a small scoopful of coffee beans (half French roast, half Eight O’Clock Coffee Beans in the red bag) into my Krups coffee grinder that I’ve had for at least 25 years, and grind them up. Already it smells good.

I put a small coffee filter in my two-cup Melitta holder, place it on top of a very large coffee mug, add the ground coffee, let the water back off a bit from boiling, and pour in just enough to soak the coffee. Then I add more, and a little more, and soon I have a perfect cup of coffee ready for half-and-half. The first sip is always the best, but the rest of the cup is pretty good too.

Another day off to a good start.