Cooking With Shane: Apple Pancakes

As it turns out, cooking in our Keystone Bullet trailer kitchen is not all that difficult and many of the same limitations and tricks that we learned in small New York apartments apply.  Full Disclosure: Shane lived in a studio in Chelsea in Manhattan that had a smaller kitchen, and unlike our camper, no oven and no freezer for six years. So when we have successes, we'll post some meals that work in the camper.

This one is not really a recipe – we just made instant pancakes and added chopped fruit to the batter. Seems like a good way to use whatever fresh items we impulse buy from the produce stands on the sides of the roads of America.  In this case, we bought a sack of local apples from Waynseboro, North Carolina (this type are supposedly Arkansas Blacks) and were running out of ways to eat them. 

• ​  Skin and chop one whole apple.  Eat the skin while cooking because that’s the healthy part.  
  

• Mix the batter according to the instructions. We used a batter that doesn't require an extra egg, but that may be because we're living in a trailer. The box says it makes 12- 18 pancakes, but it really only makes about six human-sized ones. Depending on the extra ingredient, you will want to tweak the mix just a bit to account for how much moisture you are adding. You should use less water, for example, if you are adding peaches or plums.  Change nothing if you are adding bananas or chocolate chips.  Usually we just add a tiny bit more powder if we are using wet fruit.
  
• Today we also changed out one-third of the water with apple cider which we bought in South Carolina but comes from our home state of New York.  You just have to try apple cider to know if it is a good one, but our guidelines are: no preservatives, no additives of any kind.  A lot of them have malic acid listed as a second ingredient after apples – this comes from apples, but suggests a need to add tartness back to make it taste good, like lemonade and juices that have citric acid as an ingredient.  There is nothing wrong with malic acid, and it may even have health benefits, but the straight stuff usually costs the same in the fall and cider should taste good enough to stand on its own.  

• Grease the pan with peanut oil, because it is the best for pancake flavor and less of a burn risk than butter.  Butter can be added as topper later for flavor.  Smear the oil around with a paper towel and save the greasy towel for re-priming between pancakes.
  
• Heat to medium high.  The right temperature varies stove to stove, burner to burner, and based on pan, batter, barometric pressure, humidity, and tidal fluctuations so unless you use the same mix, pan, and burner at home every time, the first pancake is often a test round and the second is fired for effect. 
• Pour the mix around in the pan and keep it thin. With fruit in the batter it won’t run quite as naturally, if you have to pour it over some spots twice or tilt the pan to get a good even spread, no problem just do it quickly.
  

The conventional wisdom regarding when to flip a pancake is when complete bubbles begin to burst on the surface, but with our mix loaded with apples there were bubbles immediately.  Again, the first pancake should be sacrificed to science.  If you can get the spatula under it, then even if it’s not cooked enough you can always flip it back to that side at the end.  With practice (or by the third or fourth cake in each batch) you will figure out the timing to get that golden brown that is the platonic ideal.

​Slather with butter to taste and add 100% pure maple syrup and enjoy!

Author

Shane