Hotcakes
A weekend breakfast doesn’t get much more fabulous than this! I’ve always had a fascination with lovely thick American hotcakes – they seemed like such a novelty to a Kiwi lass like me who previously only had the thin crepey ones. The thing is, some of them can be horrendously gluggy and stodgy – less than ideal. I played around with this recipe for a loooong time and think I finally cracked it – they’re light, fluffy and delicious. Go as crazy with toppings as you like; I’m talking whipped cream, fruit, toasted nuts, banana and bacon, lemon and icing sugar –even ice cream – it’s all good, my friends.
Makes 10–15 hotcakes
Prep time: 10 minutes plus resting time
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 cups milk
2¼ cups plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
3 free-range eggs
¼ cup caster sugar
2 tbsp melted butter plus extra for frying
1 tsp pure vanilla extract or paste
pure maple syrup to serve
butter or whipped cream to serve
Method
Add the lemon juice to a non-metallic bowl, pour in the milk and whisk to combine. Leave to sit for 5 minutes without stirring, to curdle.
Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda, and salt into a mixing bowl and whisk to combine evenly.
Beat the eggs and sugar in another bowl until thick and pale (you can either use a handheld electric beater or a whisk).
Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the egg mixture, along with the soured milk, melted butter and vanilla. Whisk gently in the centre of the bowl until all the flour comes in from the sides and the mixture is very smooth.
Heat a large (preferably non-stick) frying pan over a medium-low heat. Don’t let it get too hot – to test, flick few drop of water in the pan. The drops should dance; if they just sit there, wait until the pan is a bit hotter.
If you have a good non-stick or cast-iron pan, you don’t need to cook the hotcakes in butter – and you’ll get a more even surface at the end this way. Otherwise, add the butter to the pan, then you can add half a ladle of batter to make a small sacrificial hotcake (the first one rarely works for some reason). After that, try using no butter at all.
Cook for a minute or so until bubbles form and pop on the surface, then flip over with a metal fish slice and cook through. The hotcakes should be golden brown-ish on both sides.
Serve with lashings of maple syrup and the butter or cream – or whatever fruit you like (bacon and banana is a huge favourite of mine!).
OMG Chelsea…… these pancakes are heavenly! Fed to a hungry mob of young 20 year olds for brunch. The pancakes were raved about, I even managed to sneak one or two and they were soooo good!!! Light and fluffy, beautiful taste and so simple to make. Definitely my go to pancake recipe FOREVER!
AMAZING! x
Made this recipe this morning for my daughters 11th Birthday. Best pancakes ever. Thanks Chelsea. which book is it in? I have 3 of them … need to get the others too as most of the meals I cook these days are from your books. :)
Hi. My daughter has allergies, would whipped up aquafaba work as a substitute for egg? Or can you recommend anything else…
There is a hotcake recipe in Supergood suitable for you x
This is hands down the best recipe for hot cakes/ pancakes!! Always turn out delicious and we use the countdown brand free from gluten- gluten free plain flour and they turn out lovely and fluffy and there is never any leftovers!! Thanks sooo much for this awesome recipe Chelsea!!
Thanks! x
Hey, absolutely delicious, had them yesterday for the first time and will continue the tradition! The flavour and texture is spot-on and better than any others I have tasted. Just a query on the 2 Tbsp melted butter, was this for the initial frying or to add to the eggs and sugar? I left it out.
Hi Chelsea would these work with the Healtheries Gluten Free Baking Mix?
This is a totally idiot proof recipe, I’ve made these loads and they are always light and fluffy and thick.
Thanks so much for sharing this. I use green milk and soy milk and wondered if it would work with either of those as I try not to buy things especially for recipes like full fat milk because I would end up wasting whatever was left over.
Hi, I just want to say that I have used this recipe so many times and it has never failed. My family and I enjoy hot pancakes on a Sunday thanks to you. Your recipes are the greatest thing today.
Great recipe thank you Chelsea. A tip I read and it works everyone. Rub pan with a cut potato. No butter needed and beautiful evenly brown hotcakes every time. :)
All your recipes are so good so I just always trust them. Just needed a quick pancake recipe so gave it a crack. Blown away – apparently I had no idea what a good pancake was until I tried these! Amazing! Can’t even find a fault, they were perfect!
Quick and easy and so delicious. Best pancakes I’ve ever made. I’m so impressed I made a short video.
https://www.facebook.com/shells.streettriple/posts/1367167266687355
These were amazing. Thanks Chelsea :)
Made these today and they were the best hot cakes I’ve ever had/made. I was wondering though if I could make this batter in advance and store it in the fridge overnight or is it best to make it fresh?
Best to make it fresh :)
Yum! Thank you for sharing this
Hi Chelsea, how have I missed these? Which 1 of your fabulous books are they in??
Chelsea this recipe is brilliant. Yum yum yum. I didn’t have any lemon juice so I used white vinegar. When it wasn’t curdling I used two more tablespoons that did the trick. Next time I will warm the milk to help the curdling process. Yum thanks for your experiments.
I have no idea what Caster Sugar is lol. Is it granulated, or is it powdered sugar??
Thank you so much for slaving over this amazingly perfect recipe. My tummy and my parter thank you immensely! Xx
These were incredible!!! Mum has always made a crepe style pancake so that’s what I’ve done but when I saw this in your book I thought it might be a nice variation…it was super tasty. I used pre-squeezed lemon juice (good quality) and the milk curdled fine. They cooked perfectly and my first one wasn’t a dud!!! Thanks for constantly giving me easy and fantastic recipes to try that are affordable. We are a young couple so the food budget isn’t huge but I can always afford you meals.
Lovely! x
I didn’t have fresh lemons, so used rennet instead. Warmed milk to 43° (2 mins in the microwave) and 1 teaspoon of rennet. Milk curdled and they tasted great. Thanks Chelsea, enjoying your recipes.
These look fab, is there a reason my raw milk isn’t curdling though? Should I have used pasteurised? Thanks
I make these pancakes every 2nd Sunday, I enjoy baking them and then it is always a reward to eat them.
Best pancakes recipe ever ! My go to.
Hi Chelsea, about to make these, and just printed off the recipe. Just thought I’d let you know that it used about 5 pieces of paper to print, and could use a print link! (just thinking of the tree’s!).
Love your work, tummy is rumbling in anticipation!
Annelies
Thanks Annelies I am having this issue sorted out as I type – nothing infuriates me more than this!
Hi Chelsea, these hotcakes are brilliant! I made them for breakfast for my daughter’s birthday today and they were light, fluffy and yum, I had a very happy 7 year old :) There was also enough to share with her cousins & grandparents for afternoon tea as well (the mixture was still yum after sitting in the fridge since the morning). Thanks Chelsea!!
made these today and they were delicious as expected!! Love them :)