All recipes / American
Buttermilk Griddle Pancakes, Cracker Barrel Style
Wide, thin, lacy at the edge, soft and tangy in the middle. Whipped butter, warm syrup, pecans on the side.
Whose this is: not mine. Buttermilk griddle cakes are Southern home cooking, and the plate being chased is Cracker Barrel's. Their exact formula is theirs and I do not have it. This card is a reconstruction from what that pancake does on the plate: wide, thin, a crisp lace around the rim, a soft tangy middle, almost no sugar, no vanilla. I learned the Southern griddle as a guest, from cooks who owned it, and I am naming that on the card so nobody thinks I invented it.
What makes it different from a box pancake: a fluffy diner pancake is thick batter, lots of sugar, vanilla, and baking powder doing all the lift, cooked small and tall. This one is a thinner batter, heavy on buttermilk, with baking soda and the buttermilk's acid doing most of the lift, only a spoon of sugar, rested so the flour hydrates, then poured wide onto a hot griddle with a film of fat under it. The fat is what fries the rim into lace. The thin batter is what lets it spread. The rest is what keeps it tender instead of rubbery.
Household rules honored: no pineapple or kiwi anywhere (check the syrup label, some flavored syrups hide fruit), no heat of any kind in the shared batter, no tomatoes, no cilantro. Pecans go on per plate, not in the batch.
How it's made
1Mix the batter and let it rest
Flour needs time to drink the buttermilk. A rested batter is smoother, thickens a little on its own, and the gluten you stirred in relaxes, which is the difference between tender and rubbery. The baking soda and the buttermilk's acid begin to make gas the moment they meet, which is why you see tiny bubbles in the bowl by the end of the rest. That is the lift, not a problem.
- Melt the 3 tbsp butter and set it aside to cool until it is warm, not hot. Hot butter will start to cook the egg.
- In a large bowl whisk together 2 cups (250 g) flour, 2 tbsp (25 g) sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp salt. Whisk a full 20 seconds so the soda is spread evenly. Soda clumps leave bitter, soapy brown spots.
- In a second bowl or a large measuring cup whisk 1 3/4 cups (420 g) buttermilk with 1 egg until smooth, then stream in the cooled butter.
- Pour the wet into the dry. Stir with a spatula only until the dry flour is gone. Lumps the size of a pea are fine and a smooth batter is a mistake. Eight to ten strokes past the point of no dry flour is the limit.
- Rest the batter 15 minutes on the counter. Do not leave it out longer than 2 hours total, because it holds raw egg.
- Check the pour. It should fall off a spoon in a thick ribbon and spread slowly on its own, a little thicker than heavy cream. If it holds a mound, stir in buttermilk 1 tbsp at a time until it flows. Thin batter makes wide thin pancakes, and thick batter makes small tall ones, so this is the one number you tune by eye.
2Heat the griddle and test it
Pancakes are decided in the first ten seconds. Too cool and the batter spreads without setting and the pancake comes out pale, tough and greasy. Too hot and the outside burns before the center cooks. The target is a surface of about 375F, and you can find it with water, no special tools needed.
- Which surface: the Blackstone outside is the closest thing to what a restaurant cooks on, with room for 4 pancakes at a time. The indoor Cafe 9 by 18 griddle holds 2 to 3 at this size, and the 12 inch Lodge cast iron skillet holds 2. All work. Cast iron holds heat best once it is hot, so give it a full preheat.
- Preheat on medium (Blackstone: medium, about half of each burner) for 5 to 8 minutes on cast iron, 3 to 4 on the Blackstone. Preheat longer than you think. Cold spots are the main reason the first pancake fails.
- Test: flick a few drops of water on the surface. At the right heat they skate and dance for 2 to 3 seconds before they vanish. If they vanish on contact it is too hot, turn it down and wait. If they sit and simmer, it needs more time. An infrared thermometer, if you own one, should read 360F to 380F.
- Fat: wipe on a thin film of the butter and oil together. Melt the 2 tbsp griddle butter with the 1 tbsp oil and brush or wipe it on with a folded paper towel held in tongs. The oil raises the smoke point so the butter does not scorch, and the butter does the flavor. You want a sheen, not a pool. A pool makes a fried, greasy pancake with no lace. Re-film the surface between every batch, because the first batch uses up the fat.
3Pour, wait, flip once
The pancake tells you when to flip, and the clock does not. Heat sets the edge first, then bubbles rise through the middle and pop. When those bubble holes stay open instead of filling back in, the batter under the surface has set enough to hold together when you flip it. Flip early and you get a collapsed, raw-middled pancake. Flip late and it is dry. And flip once only: pressing or flipping twice squeezes out the air you just made.
- Ladle a scant 1/3 cup (about 80 ml) of batter per pancake onto the filmed griddle. Pour from low and do not spread it with the ladle. It spreads itself to 5 to 6 inches. Leave an inch between pancakes.
- If making the pecan version, scatter about 1 tbsp chopped or whole pecan pieces on each pancake right now, while the top is still wet, so they stick. Do this only on the plates that want them.
- Watch the edge. In about 90 seconds to 2 minutes the rim goes from shiny to matte and dry, and turns a lacy, golden brown. Bubbles form across the surface and pop. When the holes stay open and the edge looks set all the way around, it is ready.
- Slide the spatula fully underneath and flip in one motion. The first side should be an even golden brown with a faint lacy pattern. The first pancake is the test pancake. If it is pale, the griddle is too cool. If it is dark, too hot. Adjust and carry on.
- Cook the second side 60 to 90 seconds. It browns more lightly and will not blister like the first. Do not press the pancake with the spatula.
- Doneness: the pancake springs back lightly when pressed at the center, and the center, if you check one, reads 160F. That is the safe number for anything with egg in it, and it is also where the crumb sets. If a pancake feels doughy in the middle, the heat was too high and the outside beat the inside. Lower the heat and take it a little longer next time.
- Between batches wipe off any burnt bits, re-film the surface, and stir the batter gently once. The batter in the bowl keeps making gas and will thicken slightly. Add a splash of buttermilk if it starts to mound.
4Hold, and serve it the Cracker Barrel way
Three people eating at once from a griddle that holds three at a time means the first batch sits. A warm oven fixes that, as long as the pancakes do not touch and do not get covered. Steam is what turns lace into wet paper.
- Hold: set the oven to 200F. Put a wire rack on a sheet pan and lay finished pancakes on it in a single layer, no stacking, no foil. They hold about 20 minutes with the lace still crisp. Past that they dry.
- Whipped butter: with a mixer or whisk, beat 1 stick (113 g) softened unsalted butter with 1 tbsp whole milk and a pinch of salt for 3 to 4 minutes, until pale and fluffy. It spreads on a hot pancake and melts in, rather than sitting on top as a slab. Make it ahead and hold it in the refrigerator, then pull it out 20 minutes before serving.
- Syrup: warm about 1 cup of maple syrup in a small saucepan over low heat or 30 seconds at a time in the microwave. Warm syrup soaks in. Cold syrup sits on top and cools the pancake.
- Plate: stack three pancakes with a thick pat of whipped butter on top and the syrup on the side. That is the plate. The pecan version is the same plate with the nuts already cooked into the pancake, plus a few more on top if wanted.
- Batter ahead: you can mix the batter and refrigerate it for a few hours, but the soda keeps working and some lift is lost. Mix and cook in the same session for the best result. Do not hold the batter at room temperature past 2 hours. Leftover cooked pancakes keep in a zip bag in the refrigerator for 2 days or the freezer for a month, and reheat on a rack in a 350F oven for 5 minutes, or in a toaster.
5When it goes wrong
Almost every bad pancake is a heat or a mixing problem. The fix is never more syrup. It is the cause.
- Gummy, dense center: the batter was overmixed, or the heat was too high so the outside set before the center cooked. Stir less, lower the heat a notch, and wait for the bubbles to stay open before flipping.
- Pale and tough: the griddle was too cool, or the batter was overmixed. Preheat longer and run the water test. A pale pancake with no color has also sat too long on a cold surface before the batter set.
- Burnt outside, raw inside: the griddle is too hot. Turn it down, wipe it, and let it settle for a minute. Burnt butter is also the usual culprit, so use the butter and oil mix and not butter alone.
- Flat with no lace: not enough fat under the batter, or the batter is too thick, or the griddle is too cool. Make sure you see a sheen on the surface, thin the batter with a splash of buttermilk, and confirm the water dances.
- Greasy and heavy: too much fat. Wipe the surface to a thin sheen between batches, not a puddle.
- Soapy or metallic taste: baking soda that clumped or too much of it. Whisk the dry mix well and measure level.
- Pale yellow spots with no browning: that is baking soda that did not mix in. Same fix.
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