Perfect Buttermilk Pancakes
- Total Time
- 10 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:4 servings
- 2cups all-purpose flour
- 3tablespoons sugar
- 1½teaspoons baking powder
- 1½teaspoons baking soda
- 1¼teaspoons kosher salt
- 2½cups buttermilk
- 2large eggs
- 3tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- Vegetable, canola or coconut oil for the pan
Preparation
- Step 1
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and kosher salt together in a bowl. Using the whisk, make a well in the center. Pour the buttermilk into the well and crack eggs into buttermilk. Pour the melted butter into the mixture. Starting in the center, whisk everything together, moving towards the outside of the bowl, until all ingredients are incorporated. Do not overbeat (lumps are fine). The batter can be refrigerated for up to one hour.
- Step 2
Heat a large nonstick griddle or skillet, preferably cast-iron, over low heat for about 5 minutes. Add 1 tablespoon oil to the skillet. Turn heat up to medium–low and using a measuring cup, ladle ⅓ cup batter into the skillet. If you are using a large skillet or a griddle, repeat once or twice, taking care not to crowd the cooking surface.
- Step 3
Flip pancakes after bubbles rise to surface and bottoms brown, about 2 to 4 minutes. Cook until the other sides are lightly browned. Remove pancakes to a wire rack set inside a rimmed baking sheet, and keep in heated oven until all the batter is cooked and you are ready to serve.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
J. Scott Wilson
As with any buttermilk batter recipe, this works best if you let the batter sit at room temperature for about a half-hour. The buttermilk will work its magic and thicken the batter, making for super-fluffy pancakes. By cooking immediately, you're completely defeating the purpose of using the buttermilk.
MMS
Any reason why the eggs aren't lightly beaten before adding to pancake mixture? I thought over mixing was to be avoided, and it seems that mixing whole unbeaten eggs would risk this. Thoughts from the pancake experts?
Stu
A generous teaspoon of Vanilla extract makes a big difference in my experience (or 1-inch+ scraped vanilla bean).
Jean
This is my new go to recipe. I don't make any changes, but I do find that the batter is thicker if you let it sit for about 10 minutes or so after mixing everything together. It spreads like crazy if you cook right away.
JLR
The unibowlness of this is sublime, but with volumetric measurements, it's something of a fallacy! If weighed in the bowl:
250 g APF
38 g sugar
1.5 tsp each of soda, powder and salt (even my drug-dealer scale isn't up to the task of weighing these)
600 g of buttermilk (or, as I did, about 550 g of buttermilk and 50 g milk)
2 eggs
45 g butter, melted in the frying pan or on the griddle
The butter's still on my hands as I type this — delicious!
Greg
This is my "go-to" Saturday morning pancake recipe. I kick it up with two teaspoons of vanilla in the batter. When I die, I want to be buried in a vat filled with Grey Goose vodka and the NYT buttermilk pancake batter.
cw
325? Some if my pancakes were more like cookies by the end. 200 degrees is plenty to keep pancakes warm. (And heat some plates to serve!)
Jane
I regularly cook in both the US and the UK, and I have made these pancakes several times in each place. In my experience, buttermilk can vary a lot in thickness. The buttermilk I purchase in the US is consistently thinner than in the UK. Reading the notes of other cooks, it appears that the thickness varies even within the US, since some cooks comment on the extreme thinness of the batter, while others find the opposite. Start with 1/4 to 1/2 c. less buttermilk, adjusting as necessary.
sarnor
I always beat the eggs and combine with the melted butter and buttermilk then add to the dry ingredients. If you read the "How to Make Pancakes" article cited above, the reason they are added directly to the dry ingredients is so there is one less bowl to clean.
Katie
These didn't turn out right for me--too thin and liquidy. I feel fairly certain that was due to an excess of milk. Looking at other pancake recipes I regularly use, the quantity of flour and milk is the same, but here there's a 1/2 cup more of buttermilk. If I try these again I'd reduce the milk.
Nuschler
Sorry, but as an MD I had to laugh. You don’t want butter, but you recommend “generous amount” of coconut oil?
Coconut oil is 92% saturated fat! We use fresh coconut oil right of husks for laxatives here in Hawai’i.
Stan
I have tried many recipes for pancakes, including some others from NY Times Cooking. This is by far the best-fluffy and full of flavor. I made the recipe for 2 people and added blueberries and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Beautiful and delicious.
Dave Smucker
I fix a lot of pancakes - once a week breakfast for high school boys at church and Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper too. Want better lighter pancakes - change the flour. Use unbleached self-rising biscuit flour, not all purpose. You want soft wheat flour, not hard wheat flour. Want to make them really bad use bread flour. We use 10 percent sugar, and lots of butter. (That is about 160 pancakes each Thursday morning, and 1600 for Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper).
rose
Excellent recipe. My go-to for pancakes has always been the one in Joy of Cooking, which requires you to separate the whites from the egg yokes and then make an almost-meringue, before folding everything back into the batter. The result was unfailingly fluffy cakes. Was VERY skeptical about this method, but the result were amazing. This method is so much quicker, since there's no need to beat the egg whites.
Jen
I used yogurt for some of the buttermilk, and the pancakes were fantastic.Great with orange zest, marmalade and vanilla in the batter.
paula
Beat eggs before adding Let batter set for at least 30 minutes for buttermilk to work it’s magic
Steve R
I made the recipe as is and wow. I will be using the griddle on my stove more often. The recipe makes 12 large pancakes.
CCS
For fluffier, less dense pancakes (also to reduce the possibility of developing too much gluten when mixing), try 1.5 cups AP Flour and 1/2 cup gluten free flour (I used King Arthur's for the gluten free flour)! I also beat the eggs with 1 cup of buttermilk before adding this mixture + 1 more cup of buttermilk to the batter. I only had reduced fat buttermilk on hand. It worked well! Thank you for this recipe. It is a winner!
Lucy
This recipe uses the best I have tried. However I add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract with the wet ingredients
melissa
Holy grail recipe for many years. Out of town a few necessary tweaks floored me: fake buttermilk (vinegar/milk); nonstick frying pan; no oil/butter; electric range. They cooked insanely quickly with the most beautifully even and smooth tops and bottoms. No splotchiness, uncertainty, extra flipping, extra calories. Back home I’ll be back to buttermilk/gas range but nonstick pan is coming out for for sure. May occasionally use coconut oil for flavor/crispness but I’m a convert to the tenderness.
Jay
Such a perfect pancake for when I picture a griddle-prepared-cake-in-a-diner-setting. As others mentioned, I agree with, and made a few additional of my own, tweaks below: -letting batter set at room temperature, which I did while preheating my cast iron (about 10-15 minutes) -mixing egg before adding (I just generally think that’s a useful habit to have for most cooking/baking) -adding half a pint of chopped strawberries and topping with strawberry jam was 1000x worth it
Natalie
Added 3 Tbsp PBFIT and 1 tbsp water. Aldi dark chocolate morsels in half. So good! Kid approved and they don’t like Kodiak cakes.
NCPinATL
These are the best pancakes I’ve ever had in my entire life. I have never thought to cook, pancakes in anything other than butter. The coconut oil was revelatory. Oh, and I used oat milk and added a little bit of apple cider vinegar since I didn’t have any butter milk. Could I say these are healthy?
Patricia
Superb, a new favourite
Paige
Very thin batter, I guess I should have let it rest for 30 minutes as others suggested. I do think 2 1/2 cups of liquid was too much. I've made better pancakes. I might try this again with these changes.
C
An absolutely perfect recipe. Made a double batch, used about 3/4 cup of milk after running out of buttermilk. Let it sit for half an hour before cooking, which really helped the batter thicken up. Cooked the pancakes in a cast iron skillet with butter. Would add a bit of citrus zest next time for something special. Be warned, if you make a double batch like me you may end up trapped, flipping pancakes for over an hour straight while your boyfriend and roommates watch like starving animals.
Carol
I have always used the recipe where you whip the egg whites separately and fold them into the batter. They were very good, but this recipe is easier and even better! I only added a little vanilla as some have suggested. I will be using this recipe from now on.
Golddogs
I'm kicking the old, multiple-bowl ways to the curb. I let the batter rest for 30 minutes as suggested in comments, and these are the best pancakes I've had in my 71 years. Next time, blueberries will be involved.
Katarina C.
I halved the ingredients, since I was just cooking for myself, and it was decently good. However, the texture was more like a biscuit than a pancake.
The Jester of Xanadu
These are some phenomenal pancakes. I like mine a bit thicker, so I replace half the buttermilk with sour cream or yogurt (whichever is already open in my fridge) and they come out just the way I like.
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