For the past week, I have been compiling the recipes for my upcoming Best Of cookbook, and I can’t help but think of these Belle & Sebastian lyrics while I’m doing it, because they really are true! Writing about love does make me feel better, and this cookbook is nothing if not a labor of love. It’s also a little bit like reading an old diary, because each recipe transports me to the time and place when I was writing and testing it.

I wrote this recipe when Matt, Milo, and I were living with my parents in Texas, and I don’t think I would have been quite as pancake-obsessed were it not for my dad. My dad makes pancakes regularly, but they are definitely not vegan. Waking up to the smell of pancakes on the griddle and knowing that I couldn’t eat any of them lit a fire under my ass to develop a buttermilk pancake recipe of my own.

I apologize for the quality of the photo below: when you’re making pancakes at 6 in the morning for your hungry preschooler and yourself, there is a serious shortage of both natural sunlight and time to stage photos.

Fluffy Pancakes
makes 4 servings

1 1/2 cups soymilk
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil

optional:
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1/2 cup of mix-in (blueberries, bananas, nuts, chocolate chips…)

Heat a griddle or a skillet with low sides to medium-high heat. If you won’t be serving the pancakes as you make them, preheat an oven to 200 degrees and set aside a baking sheet.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the soymilk and apple cider vinegar and set aside for 5 minutes. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and then give the dry ingredients another good stir for good measure. Add the water and vegetable oil to the soymilk and vinegar mixture, which by now should have curdled, and stir together.

Before combining the wet and dry ingredients, turn the heat on the griddle down to medium. Add a tiny bit of oil to the surface (it should skid across the surface, not hiss or pop), then use a generous wad of paper towels to rub the oil into the hot surface of the griddle while still protecting your hands. There should be no oil visible on the surface.

Now, make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients and the flaxseed meal, if you’re using it. With a spatula or whisk, stir together the batter for ten seconds, or until all very big lumps are gone. The batter will still be lumpy. That’s okay.

Ladle 1/4-1/3 cup of pancake batter directly onto the skillet. If you want to mix in an ingredient, this is where you would do so, not during the mixing process but directly onto the ladled pancake. You want to add just a few to the center of the cake. You can choose to ladle as many pancakes as will fit on your griddle or you can do them one at a time, whatever is most comfortable for you. Just leave enough room between the pancakes to easily flip them.

When bubbles have formed in the middle of the pancakes and the edges are dry, use your spatula to lift the corner of the cake and check the color. It’s ready to flip when it’s golden brown. Do not, under any circumstances, press down on the pancake with your spatula. Let it do its thing. The less that you mess with pancakes, the better. After you flip, the second side will cook faster than the first side.

The first round of pancakes is usually … I don’t want to say bad, but they’re not as tasty as the rest of them will be. This is just part of the process. The first round is how you find the right temperature, so you need to sample one of them. Tear it open: if it’s cooked on the outside but too raw on the inside, turn the temperature down. If you make pancakes regularly, you’ll find your “sweet spot” on your stove and may eventually be able to do away with the tester round altogether.

Before each round of pancakes, give your batter another good whisk to re-activate the baking powder.

If you can serve them immediately, that’s best, but if you want to serve them all at once, put the pancakes onto a baking sheet in a single layer and then into a warm oven until you serve. Don’t stack them or they’ll get soggy.

Serve warm with syrup and margarine.

Breakfast is my favorite meal to eat out in Portland. I happen to think that it’s what Portland does best. I’m going with “favorite” here, but you should know, of course, that favorite is not necessarily synonymous with best.

I will employ the countdown to favorite, starting with #5:

5. Vegan Tofu Scramble (with hashbrowns and toast) from Jam on Hawthorne: The tofu scramble is tasty, sure, but I could make it myself at home and save the trip. I’m at Jam for their hash browns and their JAM on my toast. Every table features two of their four housemade jams—but we have been known to poach jam from empty tables before. The pear chai is my favorite, but they’re all delicious.

4. Breakfast Burrito from Laurelthirst: What differentiates this from just being a run of the mill breakfast burrito is their housemade veggie sausage. Laurelthirst also makes vegan pancakes, which are the favorite pancakes of many of my pals, but like I said: I’m a savory breakfast girl. If only they served the pancakes at night…

Breakfast Burrito from Laurelthirst

3. Everything Bagel with Chipotle Cream Cheese and Bac’un Chive Cream Cheese (opposite sides) and Hempmilk-Almond Milk Latte from Sweetpea Baking: I hope I’m not pissing anyone at Sweetpea off by saying that this is my favorite breakfast there, but I’m not a sweet breakfast type! I love pancakes and waffles and french toast, but I can only eat them if it’s after noon. If you’re like me, then get this awesome bagel & cream cheese combo, then eat it while sitting in a booth and people watching (or hugging Katie), then get a Caramel Nut Bar on your way out for later.

Honorable Mention: McBrunch at Sweetpea. I don’t want to love vegan versions of the McGriddle and Egg McMuffin, but I do. I soooooo do. Thankfully, they don’t do this one frequently, so I don’t have to feel bad about indulging every few months.

McBrunch at Sweetpea

2. Vegan Sausage and Maple Waffle from Flavourspot: Veggie sausage, maple butter, wrapped in a warm waffle. What is your problem? Why aren’t you eating this right now?

Vegan Sausage and Maple Waffle from Flavourspot

1. Vegan Potatoes (with tofu added and a side of cinnamon toast) from Junior’s Cafe: This hits exactly what I want in a breakfast on every level: crispy potatoes, sauteed veggies, perfectly seasoned and cooked tofu,  a creamy and tangy (and spicy!) sauce, and the very slightly sweet cinnamon toast on the side. The portions are so generous that I can stretch one meal into two by taking my leftovers home, which means that I get to eat it again later. Heaven.

Vegan Potatoes from Junior's

Come back tomorrow for my top 5 favorite ways to hold a fork!