The Betty Crocker-Approved Method For Tall, Fluffy Pancakes

There are few breakfast items as impressive as a tall stack of pancakes. The add-ins and toppings may vary, but almost everyone loves a warm, buttery pancake stack, especially if they are particularly fluffy. There are a few different tricks you can employ to achieve such a feat, but according to Betty Crocker, one of the best is to swap in a cheap, old-school ingredient: buttermilk.

Buttermilk is commonly added to easy pancake recipes for a few reasons. From a food science point of view, it contains lactic acid that reacts with baking soda to create carbon dioxide bubbles that add air into the batter for a fluffier result. Buttermilk is also incredibly creamy, which leads to a more indulgent texture. Finally, it adds a nice tang and a decadent flavor that plays off the other ingredients well.

The only issue is that you need slightly more buttermilk than regular milk to ensure that the batter reaches the right consistency. You'll also need to use baking soda and thus the baking powder needs to be adjusted to avoid an off-putting taste or an unstable rise. Betty Crocker suggests using one cup of buttermilk for every ¾ cups of regular milk and decreasing the baking powder by two thirds. So, if a recipe calls for 3 teaspoons, only use 1 teaspoon while adding a ½ teaspoon of baking soda.

If you don't have buttermilk, you can curdle some regular milk by adding vinegar or lemon juice to it and leaving it to sit for a few minutes. Resting a batter can also help create a better rise for pancakes, as it gives the dry ingredients a chance to really hydrate and start to activate. Around half an hour in the fridge is ideal but even 5 to 10 minutes can help. 

It's important to make sure that the baking powder and soda you are using are fresh as well. If the containers are opened, they can start to degrade in just six months. You also don't want to mix a batter too much as those precious carbon dioxide bubbles can deflate, so fold gently with a spatula rather than whisking. However, whipping the egg whites on their own before adding them is a game-changing method for perfectly fluffy pancakes that can really create some height. 

A thicker batter helps as well: One Redditor in the r/AskCulinary thread suggests a dry to wet ingredient ratio of 1.5:1. Again, the fluffy pancake tricks out there are endless, but if you have buttermilk, baking soda, and a spatula, you should be fairly good to go. Here's a berry buttermilk pancake recipe to help you get started.