Joan's pancakes

Very chilly weather here, so weeding through my cookbook shelves has been a pleasure.  Instead of slipping and sliding on the icy, bumpy all-of-six inches of snow, I've been rediscovering recipes, and trying out others I never got to.  

Joan and Bud Stillman were good family friends when I was growing up, I think through their original friendship with my stepmother.  We knew their daughters, somewhat close in age to my sister and me.   In the 80's, when I was raising my two children in New Hampshire, I heard Bud had had a thrombosis and they were deeply involved in changing their cooking and eating habits. Then in 1985, I received a wonderful little cookbook from them called "Fast & Low" : easy recipes for low fat cuisine", which they had published with Little, Brown .

Reading it now, in 2015, it closely mirrors the eating habits we have today.  Joan's background in French cooking introduced fresh vegetables, simply prepared chicken and fish, lots of fresh herbs, and very simple recipes.  One of my favorites is her pancake mix, which I store in the fridge in a large Mason jar, ready for a winter morning like this. Her recipe calls for sifting all the dry ingredients - I used a sieve, since I don't have a sifter - which made the pancakes very tender and fluffy.

The Pancake Mix:

2 cups King Arthur all purpose unbleached flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon sugar
4 cups King Arthur whole wheat flour

Measure ingredients into a large bowl, then , using a mesh strainer or flour sifter, sift the ingredients one cup at a time into another large bowl.  Stir dry mixture well.

For the pancakes:

2 large egg whites, beaten
1 cup pancake mix
1 cup buttermilk*


* Note:  her recipe called for 1 and a half cups buttermilk, but the mixture was perfect with one cup, so I did not add more buttermilk.

Mix together and stir gently in a bowl.  Drop 1/3 cup batter into a preheated, nonstick pan, cook 3 minutes, then turn and cook the other side.  Since I don't have a nonstick pan, I used a stainless steel skillet and added extra light olive oil to cook the pancakes.  They did stick a little, but I was just firm with the spatula and they turned out fine.  Excellent flavor!

Store pancake mix in the fridge in a large Mason jar.