When I was growing up, we had a weekend tradition, making fruit pancakes. It was the thing I remember my dad making most often in the kitchen[1].

I also remember helping my mom with baking and other various food prep, but pancakes were the first thing that I learned to make myself, with no recipe.

The recipe is very forgiving, and probably helped me a lot with my nalysnyky.

Fruit Pancakes, 1 batch:

Ingredients:
– 1 overfull cup of Pancake mix (we always used Aunt Jemima buttermilk pancake mix, you can only get it ‘complete’ now, which doesn’t require milk or eggs, but we add them anyway…vegans or those lactose intolerant should see if they can find the non-complete version, or make this part from scratch)
– 2 large eggs (vegans can omit this, but I don’t know how it will work)
– 1 cup milk (vegans or those lactose intolerant can use water here)
– Butter, 1/2 to 1 stick
– Fruit to taste (2 bananas, 2 handfuls of cherries or blueberries, 1/2 can of peaches, some people like apples in pancakes, but I don’t…apples I would peel before use)
– Maple syrup (optional)

Kitchen tools:
– Medium to large mixing bowl
– Stirring spoon
– Ladle (optional)
– Butter knife
– Measuring cup or mug (a normal sized mug is fine…all you need is something that will be the same size each time)
– Skillet

Instructions:
– Turn on your skillet to 375 degrees F. You may need to experiment to figure this out. It should be the temperature where butter will crackle and turn brown (eventually), but not burn
– Crack the eggs into the mixing bowl. Remove any shell that accidentally got in.
– Add the fruit. Cut bananas into 6, then slice, cut peach slices in 3
– Add 1 heaping cup of pancake mix
– Add about half of the cup of milk
– Stir. You’re looking for the lumps to disappear, and to see the popping bubbles from the baking soda and baking powder in the pancake mix
– Stir while adding more of the milk. You will probably end up putting bout 3/4 of the cup in
– Stir until there are no more lumps, and the mix is the correct consistency (the easiest way to test this is by buttering the skillet and putting a pancake on the skillet. It should be about 0.7-1.0cm thick. This part will likely be trial and error.)
– Butter up your skillet! Especially with the first pancakes of a batch, you want to make sure there’s lots of butter on the skillet. I usually cut off a piece with the butter knife, stab[2] the piece, and swab it around the skillet. You want to make sure the pancakes won’t stick, and incidentally also be filled with buttery flavour goodness.
– Pour one half ladle’s worth or three tablespoons’ worth of pancake batter for each pancake you want to make. A large square skillet will hold four pancakes, most frying pans can only hold three or fewer.[3]
– Watch the underside of the pancackes. This is not the easiest thing to do. You want to flip them when they look cooked on the bottom. You can also tell from the top when the top starts to dry out and become pockmarked.
– Flip the pancakes
– Watch them, don’t let them burn
– When the pancakes are cooked on both sides, spatula them onto a serving plate and start the next batch. You will want to at least partially re-butter the skillet
– Serve with syrup or butter, to taste, or eat them plain!

Serves 2-3 per batch. Can be easily multiplied by multiplying all ingredients above. Note that the milk should still be added only until the mix has the correct consistency, or you will get something close to crepes (very thin pancakes) with strange large fruit-shaped lumps.

Enjoy!

[1]I also remember him making toasted meat sandwiches and jam, but I was never really involved in that.

[2]It’s a butter knife.

[3]Advanced: The little spatters of batter are called ‘crunchies and munchies’, and you can make sure to add a bit of extra butter and put little bits of batter in it