This was a case of how well my memory serves me. The recipe is from a book I co-authored with Sharon Kramis back in the 1980’s, a first peek at the cooking of the Pacific Northwest. I can’t say it has been 20 years since I last tried the oatmeal griddlecakes, but 10 years probably isn’t too far out.

 

We eat a lot of oatmeal in this house, and I had simply grown tired of the same old pot-stirred stuff. This isn’t to say my version of oatmeal isn’t exemplary. Au contraire. It is the oatmeal from which most others would rather not be measured. None the less, too much of a good thing gets tedious. So I figured I would switch up. Hence, the griddlecakes.

 

I have wicked good buttermilk pancakes in my history, but they should remain there, if only for the sake of my slight paunch. And I always feel like I have been poisoned afterward, moving from breakfast table to couch to snore it off. Not so with oatmeal griddlecakes -- none of that leadenness you get with wheat only pancakes.

 

And the oatmeal somehow heightens the natural sourness of the buttermilk and sets up an extraordinary interplay with the oncoming collision of melting butter and maple syrup. Lace the edges with a little bacon and you are, my friend, looking right in the face of the Almighty Yum.

 

1 ½ C oatmeal

2 C buttermilk

½ C flour

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 eggs, beaten

 

Mix together the oatmeal and buttermilk and let sit for 15 minutes to soften the oatmeal. Then stir in the remaining ingredients. Bake on a hot griddle.

Yield: 12 cakes

 

Recipe Road Test: My only little tweak here --  and who knows if it is necessary or not -- I sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt and then gently whisk that around to be sure it’s all mixed together.

 

This is a thick, gloppy batter and I find it works better when you make smaller cakes and cook them at a moderate temperature. It’s kind of a feng shui of griddlecake cooking that you are shooting for, getting the centers to cook through without overbrowning the surface. I find it takes a little experimenting and heat adjusting. Also, I use a two burner-long cast iron griddle I have had forever and a day and with which I intend to be buried. It has ridges on one side for meat, and the flat griddle on the other. I know I got by without it before I had it, but I forget how.

 

Road Test Result: My wife loves me even more than ever before.