The Secret to Great Pancakes Has Been in Your Pantry All Along
Is oatmeal sustenance to trudge through on your own each morning, or a generous meal to offer friends? Galway Kinnell, a winner of both a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, took his position in his poem 'Oatmeal':
I am aware it is not good to eat oatmeal alone.Its consistency is such that it is better for your mental health if somebody eats it with you.That is why I often think up an imaginary companion to have breakfast with.
Mr. Kinnell's ensuing lines about his meal with the long-dead poet John Keats make a compelling case for conversations with ghosts. Not so much for porridge.
While he was wrong about oatmeal — 'gluey lumpishness, hint of slime' — he was right about inviting others to partake. Perhaps he would have found the pleasure, not misery, of sharing oats with these pancakes, which have all the warmth of oatmeal and are better for serving company.
Recipe: Honey Oat Pancakes
Humble as they are, oats can work miracles in dishes, lending their natural sweetness and a scent like warm, clean hay. Aside from softening into creamy hot oatmeal and chilled overnight oats, they crisp into granola or crunchy crumble toppings, add a bumpy chew to cookies and make muffins hearty. And they can cross the breakfast-dessert bridge with this dish, which is startling in the best way: It tastes like cozy, steaming porridge, but looks and feels like delightful buttermilk pancakes.
Tiny quick oats soaked in buttermilk, along with flax and honey, give these pancakes a unique tenderness. Biting into a round, crackly with butter and caramelized from honey on the outside, reveals the pleasant, familiar creaminess of oatmeal in the center. Flax meal softens alongside the oats, amplifying their nutty flavor and binding the batter, eliminating the need for eggs, which are expensive and hard to find right now. (A test of this recipe with eggs worked, but the pancakes were stiffer and sort of boring.)
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