Pancake Recipes

Old fashioned Pancake Recipes includes buttermilk pancakes made from scratch using self-rising flour.

They are no longer limited to the breakfast meal as they were in the olden days... restaurants serve them the world over, day and night.

The following Waffle and Buttermilk Pancake Recipes were given to me in the 1970's when we were with family and friends, camping out.

Made with self-rising flour, these pancakes can be made almost as quick and easy as using a boxed mix.

Buttermilk Pancake Recipe

• 1 large egg
  
  
• 6 tablespoons butter*, melted
  
  
• 2 cups buttermilk
  
  
• 2 cups (unsifted) self-rising flour
  
  

Beat egg in mixing bowl.

Stir in melted butter and buttermilk.

Add flour and mix 1 minute or until smooth.

Do not over beat.

Pour enough batter onto a lightly greased hot griddle or into a preheated skillet** to form a circle the size you prefer.

Cook until done around the sides and bottom is lightly browned.

Takes about 3 minutes.

Turn over and cook the other side.

Serve immediately with syrup or other toppings of your choice.

The most popular way to serve them is with butter and traditional maple syrup.

They are delicious served topped with fruits such as fresh or frozen blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, pineapple, or bananas.

Makes 12 thin medium sized pancakes.

For thicker cakes, use less buttermilk.


*The original recipe called for 6 tablespoons vegetable oil.

I use butter for a tastier pancake.

You may use your favorite oil, if you prefer.

**If using an electric skillet instead of a stove-top pan, preheat it to 325F.

Regular sausage patties or links, Polish Sausage, bacon and eggs are excellent side dishes to complete your meal.

For Waffle Recipes

Reduce buttermilk by 2-4 tablespoons and cook in a waffle iron per manufacturer instructions.

Blueberry Pancakes


Made with Blueberries, topped with cream cheese and corn syrup.


Chocolate Pancakes


Made from your own mix (recipe included).

Delicious served with regular syrup, bananas, strawberries or ice cream.

Potato Pancakes


Also known as Potato Latkes.

Serve for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

A Little History on Pancakes

No one knows who invented pancake recipes, but history traces them back to the 4th century B.C.

We do have History records that Thomas Jefferson, a Gourmet and the third President of the United States, loved pancakes so much that he sent a special recipe for making them back to his hometown. 

Although cooks were already making pancakes, Henry Charpentier, a famous chef who emigrated to America in the 1930s is credited with populating them around that time.

In the early 1940s my Mama made what she called "fry bread".

It was thin pancakes cooked in an iron skillet on a wooden burning, cast iron cook-stove.

The stove had no oven, so all her breads, including biscuits were cooked on top of her stove.

I don't know how she mixed her batter (I was very small then), but I remember standing nearby the stove, smelling the good food, and waiting for my buttermilk pancake or hot biscuit.

Sometimes she gave them to my twin sister and me plain and sometimes with her homemade jellies or jams.

Other times she would place them on a plate and pour melted homemade butter and Karo syrup over them.

Today, she would call that a pancake rather than fry bread!

My 1947 edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer has recipes for them referred to as "Griddle Cakes".

The book also lists a Russian "Pancake" with instructions to spread it with a spoonful of caviar, cover it with cream and sandwich another pancake on top.

Fannie Farmer suggested serving it for supper with a salad and dessert.

Related Pages

Buttermilk Biscuits Recipe

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