My pancake recipe, like many of my basics is a riff on one from a Fannie Farmer recipe, the cookbook that was our kitchen bible when I was growing up. I beat ¾ cup of milk, 2 tablespoons of melted butter, a squeeze of orange, and one egg in a mixing bowl until frothy.
In another bowl, 1 cup of flour gets combined with 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a generous sprinkling of sea salt, 1 tablespoon of ground ginger, and 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom. Then the wet and the dry come together. They key to great pancakes is to not over mix. In this instance, lumps are totally cool. Over mixing causes the gluten in the flour to develop so you will get pancakes that are more toothsome than tender.
I cook very nearly everything in butter. Except pancakes. Since the pan stays hot for so many rounds of batter, the milk solids in butter will brown and burn. I have a friend who uses clarified butter, which is a great idea, but honestly making pancakes from scratch is fancy enough for me in the morning. I just use vegetable oil. I know that there are all sorts of tricks to keep your berries or fruit from sinking to the bottom of the bowl and being evenly distributed throughout the batter, but my solution is to not put them in the batter at all. As the batter cooks, I quickly place berries on top. If you move quickly enough you can get it so they sink in just a little. Once the berry laden top is beginning to bubble, wait for the bubbles to begin popping. If they fill up with batter right away, it’s too soon to flip. You want the holes to stay open on the surface. Then flip and cook for another 2 minutes.