Growing up in Japan, whenever my mom made pancakes, she always used the popular Morinaga brand Hotcake Mix. Oh yes, we call pancakes “hotcakes” (ホットケーキ) in Japan. I love this brand of pancake mix so much that I was still buying it from Japanese supermarkets even after I moved to the US. But I’ve been curious to try making my own Buttermilk Pancakes at home as I always love eating them for breakfast or brunch at American restaurants.
Since I don’t bake much, buttermilk is one of rare ingredients in my kitchen and I can’t think of any of my recipes that need buttermilk off the top of my head. So whenever I woke up in the morning and felt like eating buttermilk pancakes, I had no buttermilk in the fridge. I slowly forgot about my intention to try making pancakes from scratch.
One day when I saw my friend Suzanne’s Buttermilk Pancakes on her blog You Made That?, I finally decided it’s time to make them and bought buttermilk before the weekend. I followed most of her recipe, but I omitted flax meal as that’s another ingredient that I don’t use and added almond extract because this is a “secret” ingredient for our homemade waffles and I wanted to add that for pancakes too.
I have to tell you – I’m so glad I made these pancakes. My family was really happy with these delicious buttermilk pancakes and we pour homemade Strawberry Sauce on top. The texture of pancakes are really fluffy and soft, and you can taste the wonderful buttery flavor with each bite. To tell you how excited I am about this recipe, you will see buttermilk in my fridge before the weekend now so that I can make these pancakes. Suzanne call it “Better than IHOP” and let me say it’s WAY better than IHOP and we no longer buy pancake mix from stores!
You might think this is just too much work, why should you make pancakes from scratch when there are so many brands of pancake mix available. My family tried many different pancake mix including Stonewall Kitchen Farmhouse but nothing comes close to the taste of homemade buttermilk pancakes. So if you are curious how good the pancake is, don’t forget to buy buttermilk before the weekend!
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- 1¼ cups all-purpose flour (plain flour) (1¼ cups = 160 g)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch kosher/sea salt (I use Diamond Crystal; Use half for table salt)
- 1 large egg (50 g w/o shell) (beaten)
- 1¼ cups buttermilk (1¼ cup = 295 ml) (See Notes for homemade recipe)
- 2 Tbsp unsalted butter (melted)
- ¼ cup sugar (¼ cup = 50 g)
- 1 tsp almond extract
- Cooking spray (or butter)
- confectioners’ sugar/powder sugar (optional)
- maple syrup (optional)
- Strawberry Compote (optional)
-
Gather all the ingredients.
- In a large bowl, put the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and whisk together.
- In a small bowl, whisk the egg and the melted butter together.
- Stir in the buttermilk and the sugar.
- Add the egg mixture into flour mixture and whisk all together.
- Add almond extract to the batter and mix.
- Heat a large griddle pan or frying pan on medium heat. Spray with non-stick cooking spray or melt butter on the pan.
- Pour about ¾ cup of batter onto hot pan from 12 inch high. This is necessary for a nice circular shape.
- Cook until you see lots of bubbles start to show on surface of the pancake. It’s usually about 3 minutes.
- Then flip and cook the other side for 1.5 minutes, or until a nice light brown color.
- Sprinkle powder sugar and serve with maple syrup or homemade Strawberry Sauce (Compote).
Buttermilk: Homemade recipe, check this post.
Slightly adapted from You Made That?.
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This recipe is so awesome.. Way better than the store bought mix. Thank you. 🙂
Thank you so much for your feedback, Lakshmi! I’m glad to hear you liked the recipe! 🙂
I just tried the recipe this morning and me and my hubby both love it.. He even request me to leave some for his mom to try.. the best part is we don’t even need to add maple syrup to enhance the taste as it is already very tasty on its own!!!
Hi Angel! Thank you for trying this recipe! Agree, it has very nice flavor on its own. I’m glad you and your husband (and hopefully your MIL) enjoyed it! 🙂 Thank you for stopping by to give me your feedback. I really appreciate it!
I have been on a buttermilk pancake binge lately and I’m still trying to find the perfect one. I’ve tried 3 or 4 different recipes and I’m not satisfied. They taste really good but it’s something about the texture that’s throwing me off. I noticed that your batter looks pretty smooth..should I mix until it’s smooth? Other recipes state to mix until just blended with some lumps.
Hi Vanessa! The lighting for step by step pictures are not so good, and it may not see clearly, but I do keep pancake batter (and tempura batter too!) have some lumps. 🙂
Pancakes we’re always a big deal in our house. (literally big, each pancake would take up almost the entire pan)
I love a good buttermilk pancake, but I really enjoy experimenting with different kinds of flour. My mom’s go to is whole wheat pancakes, which almost taste healthy! My personal favorite is buckwheat pancakes, they’re really hearty and have a nice nutty taste to them. I also like substituting half of the flour with mochiko, since it gives a good bit of chewiness that I really like (it also warrants some extra spices, since the mochiko does a lot more for the texture than the flavor)
It’s also not a big deal to make the batter from scratch if you just mix together a big batch of the dry ingredients, and store it in your cupboard. Then just pull out a couple cupfuls, and mix in the wet ingredients, and voila!
Hi Jonathan! Thank you for writing! I’d love to try the buckwheat pancakes! I had pancakes with mochiko in it too and the texture was fun. Once my kitchen remodel is done, I get to have more space for storing pancake mix… I always wanted to do that. Thanks for the reminder! 😀
I just tried this for breakfast! After the first bite he said “Save this recipe!!”. Buttermilk is not something we usually have on hand either as we usually cook asian food and not so much baking. I substitute butter in liquid mixture with 3 tbsp of coconut oil and only 1 tbspn of sugar. Since we will be lathering it with cured butter and maple syrup 🙂 Thank you for the recipe as always!!
Hi Wikki! Thank you so much for your kind feedback! So happy to hear to hear you two enjoyed this recipe. Thanks for sharing your version too! 🙂
These are delicious! I also grew up on my mom’s morinaga brand hotcakes but wanted to try making pancakes from scratch for a change…my son grew tired of boxed pancake mixes & suggested we look online. I’ve tried several different recipes and my kids absolutely LOVE your pancake recipe. They come out so fluffy and delicious. Thanks for sharing! This is our new go-to pancake recipe.
Hi Karin! I’m so happy to hear you and your children liked this recipe! Thank you so much for your kind feedback. 🙂 xo
very nice recipe….without buttermilk, can i make this recipe?
can i use milk?? yogurt?? or something else???
Hi Chris! Thank you! I haven’t tried with this recipe, but I think you can make it with milk (and yogurt). You probably need to test and see how fluffy it is, etc.
These look divine! I haven’t tried your recipe yet but can vouch for almond essence making the difference. I occasionally add kinako powder to my batter, which is delicious or I top my regular pancakes with syrup and kinako. Yum!
Hi JJ! Oh I can imagine the kinako pancakes… My daughter loves Kinako, I think she’ll love it. Thank you for your wonderful suggestion on kinako pancakes! xoxo
Thank you Nami for this great recipe. Love this pancake! It’s fluffy and soft indeed. I loaded each pancake with banana slices and blueberries. No honey is needed. Eat on it’s own is perfect enough.
Hi Angie! Thank you for trying this recipe! I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed it. I miss eating pancakes with blueberries (as they are super expensive in Japan)… 🙂
Best Ever! Thank you for sharing.
Hi Michele! Thank you for your kind feedback!
I tried these today for the second time. The first time I tried making these with vanilla extract and regular milk as it was all they had and they were still great pancakes. Today I tried made them exactly as the recipe, with almond extract and buttermilk and they tasted like a light, buttery almond delight. Uwajimaja’s here in Seattle sells the mix from Japan but it’s pretty pricey. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. It will be highly treasured in my kitchen.
Hi Silvia! Thanks so much for trying my recipe! I’m glad you got to try it with almond extract. That was my aha moment and I always include it in my pancakes. Thank you for your kind feedback! xoxo
I tried this! It’s yummy! I also followed your strawberry compote recipe 🙂 https://ibb.co/86K2C6H
Hi Karen! Oh, that looks AMAZING!!! Than you so much for trying my recipe! 🙂