The BEST One-Bowl Buttermilk Pancakes
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
These one-bowl buttermilk pancakes are a weekend staple. The recipe yields a ton, and the end result is fluffy pancake heaven! 🥞🥞🥞🥞🥞
Over the weekend, I said goodbye to my electric griddle, a gadget I’ve had for over a decade, one I’ve loved and hated over the years for various reasons: loved for its large, flat surface and, um, well, that’s really it.
My electric griddle is big and cumbersome, awkward to find space to both use and stow. For 10 years I’ve used it solely for pancakes, which has been reason enough to hang on to it because I find cooking pancakes in skillets tricky — even in my largest skillet there isn’t enough space to maneuver a spatula around more than three pancakes.
But over the weekend, I finally thanked my griddle for its service then said sayonara. What sparked this civilized departure? It was the Baking Steel griddle, a slab of thick-gauge steel designed for both stovetop and in-oven use. Yes, this griddle doubles as a pizza Steel — it’s 10 lbs. heavier than the original Baking Steel, which means it will make your oven behave even more like a wood-fired hearth.
I have been experimenting with this gadget for several weeks now, making pancakes for the kiddos, breakfast tacos for Ben and me, and English muffins for us all. What I love is not only its versatility but its shape and design — it takes up no extra space to use because it sits on the stove top; it takes up little space when it’s stowed because it measures about 1/2-inch in thickness even when it’s tucked into its awesome storage sleeve.
The Baking Steel griddle’s uses extend far beyond the dishes I am showing here, however: check out Serious Eats’ Kenji Lopez-Alt’s exhaustive research in this post. Food and Wine was equally impressed.
The Baking Steel griddle is available for order now.
Before we get to the giveaway, let’s discuss these pancakes. Pancakes have never been my forte, but for about a year now, I’ve had success with the kitchn’s lofty buttermilk pancakes, which are delicious and relatively simple to make. The peculiar trick to making these pancakes is that you separate the egg yolks from the egg whites, then incorporate the yolks into the batter before the whites. The whites are never beaten. It’s odd but oddly it works — the pancakes never taste so good as when I follow the kitchn’s method.
That said, this method requires three bowls: one for the dry ingredients, one for the yolks, buttermilk, milk and butter, and one for the whites. This, for me, first thing in the morning is too many, and because I’ve found that when I use one bowl or three my children are none the wiser, I stick to one: I whisk the eggs directly into the dry ingredients as though I am making pasta, then add the milk and buttermilk, and finally the butter. Because I melt the butter in a liquid measuring cup in the microwave then transfer it directly to the dishwasher, I don’t consider it a dish — that’s fair, right?
These pancakes have become a family fave and, with the griddle on hand, a weekly staple. The batter makes enough for a ton of pancakes and stores just fine in the fridge…sure, it turns a little grey overnight, but again, the little ones don’t mind.
For this pancake batter, incorporate the eggs into the dry ingredients as though you are making pasta dough:
Then add the milk and buttermilk and finally the melted butter:
A pancake breakfast is a happy breakfast…
The BEST One-Bowl Buttermilk Pancakes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 18-20 three-inch pancakes
Description
Adapted from the kitchn’s recipe for lofty buttermilk pancakes. The recipe below differs only by method not by ingredients. Check out the kitchn’s post if you want to try their egg-separating method — don’t worry, you don’t have to beat any whites!
When cooking these pancakes on the Baking Steel griddle, I suggest heating your griddle before you begin making your batter. I have a flat-top cooking surface, and I have the best results warming the griddle up slowly over low to medium heat for about 15 to 20 minutes. If you have a gas range, you will be able to control the temperature better.
Finally, the best trick I’ve learned for cooking pancakes is to go small — I use my 2-tablespoon measuring cup to portion out batter. The pancakes cook quickly and evenly when I use this small scoop.
If you want to use sourdough discard in this recipe, simply cut back some of the flour and water, preferably by weight. So, for example, if you want to use 100 grams of sourdough discard (at 100% hydration) in this recipe, cut back 50 grams of the flour and 50 grams of the buttermilk. That would call for using 270 grams of flour and 418 grams of buttermilk.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups (320 g) flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (8 g) salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups (468 grams) buttermilk
- 1/2 cup milk
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- Canola or peanut oil for frying
Instructions
- If using a Baking Steel griddle, begin warming it up over low heat.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a large bowl. Add the eggs and beat with a fork till the eggs are whisked and incorporated into the surrounding flour, as if you were making pasta. Add the buttermilk and milk, and stir with spatula to combine. Add the melted, cooled butter and stir until combined.
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, film with a thin layer of oil. After about 30 seconds, when the oil shimmers but is not smoking, lower the heat to medium-low and use a soup spoon (I have a one-eighth cup (2 T) measuring cup, which I love for pancakes) to drop in heaping spoonfuls of pancake batter. Note: If you are using a BS griddle, adjust heat so griddle radiates heat and feels hot but not smoking — this takes just a teensy bit of practice.
- The batter will spread into a pancake about 3 inches wide. Cook for about 2 1/2 minutes. (If the pancake scorches or the oil smokes, lower the heat.) When the bubbles that form on the edges of the pancakes look dry and airy, use a thin spatula to gently lift one side and peek underneath. If the pancake is golden brown, flip and cook on the other side for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes, or until the bottom of the pancake is golden brown.
- Transfer to a cooling rack briefly before serving. Scrape any stray crumbs or scraps out of the skillet, add a little more oil, and continue to cook the remaining batter.
Notes
Recipe Notes from the kitchn:
- If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can use plain yogurt instead. Just use about 2/3 cup and thin it with some milk until it reaches the 1 cup mark. You can also quickly make a buttermilk substitute by mixing 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or white vinegar with 2 cups of milk.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
418 Comments on “The BEST One-Bowl Buttermilk Pancakes”
Crazy cake…it can be stirred up right in the cake pan!
One bowl Brownie for me. Baking Steel looks great but expensive! Nice f them to give me away!!
Oops!! Nice of them to give ONE away!! ?
i make most of my cookies in one bowl–thought i was the only one cheating in that way but apparently not!
Brownies!!!!! And thank you for the opportunity to win one of these. I use my baking steel all the time for pizza and love it. Would love one of these griddles. I make chocolate chip pancakes every weekend for the kids. I’ll have to try this recipe.
i would LOVE to be the winner of the Baking Steel Griddle!!
buttermilk pancakes. baking steel has an english muffin recipe on their website that is easy and good.
I am OBSESSED with pancakes. Love this!
My favorite one bowl dish – english muffins! They would be so great to make with the baking steel griddle… hint, hint 🙂 Love your photos by the way! So inspiring!
My favorite one-bowl dish? It is technically supposed to be a multi-bowl dish, but my mother throws all caution to the wind and mixes her popovers all in one vessel. Despite every effort at precision — be it mixing, dividing, flours, etc — I still can’t replicate them!
Dutch babies are great!
Oh my! The baking steel has been on my wishlist for so long! My favorite one bowl recipe is just a simple loaf of bread. I mix and knead the dough right there in one big bowl. I’d love to try baking a loaf on the baking steel one day 🙂
I like the idea of a Baking Steel it reminds me of a well seasoned cast iron pan.
One bowl recipe of simply sundried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh picked basil, olive oil, fresh ground pepper!
OH man! I’d lose my mind with excitement if I won that griddle (I’ve been following Baking Steel since their Kickstarter!)
My favorite one-bowl dish is probably quick’n’dirty cornbread! My deeply-held-gross-but-tasty-secret is substituting creamed corn for part of the liquid ingredients. Roasted hatch chilis from here in Colorado also add some magic.
I love pancakes, especially using the maple syrup my father made from his own trees!
Love pancake and waffle one bowl dish. Have tried several of your recipes and everyone of them have been excellent .
love to win one of these
Chocolate cake mixed right in the pan in which it bakes. Does that count as one bowl? 🙂
I am not great at keeping anything to one bowl….blueberry brownies are probably the best of those. I’d love to win this for my son and his family, but who am I kidding?
This is super heinous and an affront to all culinary enthusiasts out there, but sometimes when I’m down on my luck, itching for some sweeties, and the hourglass is on its final grains of sand, I reach for cake box mix and a pint of ice cream. Add melted ice cream to mix and add two eggs and VOILA, operation fatty is a go!
My favorite one bowl recipe would be either chocolate cake or brownies. Just depends on the type of texture and chocolatey flavor I am looking for 🙂
Brownies – chocolate and butter melted together in an old favorite glass bowl and then sugar, eggs, flavoring (various experiments along the way) and dry ingredients. I figured it out many years ago when I wanted to bake without waking napping babies (my youngest two are twins)
Hello! Looks like fun! Claire’s Corner Copia’s Pasta e Fagioli is probably my favorite one bowl (or pot) dish.
Pancakes are my favorite.
I have the pizza steel and love it. I’m sure that griddle would be fantastic!
Not one bowl, but one griddle: scrambled eggs (sunny side if you must), prosciutto (bacony smokiness w/o the grease), grilled sliced tomatoes, a couple of cups of baked beans in pile in the corner, and good piece of bread toasted on the griddle. Breakfast with minimal clean up!
Well, I guess pancakes would be mine too, but I would love to win the griddle. I have enrolled in a Craftsy.com class for Mexican food and I could really use the griddle for that!
I’ve always had a hard time with pancakes. I’ll have to try this recipe! My favorite one pot meal is Mark Bittman’s mostly veggie frittata. I saute all the veggies in my dutch oven and then add cheese and eggs. Super easy!
Hello, I would love to win this griddle. Years ago we had a huge gas stove that had one in the middle with the elements either side, it was great for pikelets (a softer version of pancakes best eaten with jam and cream).
Thanks for the chance.
My favorite one bowl recipe would have to be cereal. Nothing beats tearing open a fresh box, filling a bowl to its maximum capacity and gently inundating it with some ice-cold milk. One of life’s simple pleasures.
I like a bowl of grilled chicken salad.
Meatloaf!! Huge family favorite.