Happily accidental

Moo requested pancakes for breakfast Saturday.  I, being a big fan of pancakes, was happy to comply.  I started with the old standby recipe out of the Red and white better Homes and Gardens cookbook. You know the one;

1 cup all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

Or something close to that. (I'm going from memory here) The thing is; I've turned my back on a good few of those ingredients so I made substitutions as necessary.  Freshly ground whole wheat instead of all purpose flour, Maple syrup rather than sugar and coconut oil in place of vegetable oil.

When you use coconut oil in a recipe like this you have to be careful that it doesn't have prolonged contact with the cold milk before being mixed into the other ingredients or it will solidify and how will you mix it then?  It's extra tricky since when you're using the muffin method, as you do with pancakes, you want the mixing to be at a minimum all while keeping the dry separate from the wet as long as possible.

I generally measure all my wet ingredients into one large cup, mix them in the same and then introduce them to their dry counterparts once my griddle is hot and ready.  When using coconut oil I do things a bit differently.  I mix the other wet ingredients, pour them into the dry, mix a stroke or two and then add the oil.  Usually it works like a charm, except on Saturday it didn't

Saturday I guess there was a big cold milk pool right on top of the sloppy mixture as I poured in the coconut oil and it seized up like a tired engine on a February morning. I did not have time for that kind of nonsense.  I skimmed out the cold oil, broke it into pieces as small as I could quickly manage, threw it back in and mixed it all up.

The result was a marriage of the pastry and muffin methods.  Utterly delightful.  Those little shards of cold coconut oil melted as they met the griddle leaving my pancakes light, glorious and beautifully golden crusted.  I'm telling you, it was divine.  You should try it  sometime.