There are precious few foods that slip easily under a door. Lettuce leaves come to mind, along with matzo and veal scaloppine. But none of these will ever replace my favorite from the flat food group: pancakes.
These little discs of deliciousness have plenty of names: flapjacks, hotcakes, griddle cakes, and more. Whatever the moniker, though, what they have in common are four ingredients: wheat flour, eggs, dairy and a leavener.
As you probably know, it's the gluten in wheat flour that allows the pancakes to rise and become fluffy and light. All-purpose flour is dandy, though some cooks with palates more refined than mine prefer softer flours. Seriously, though, all-purpose is fine. It's a pancake.
There are two basic parts of the pancake process: mixing and cooking.
Mixing: Don't overmix your batter. Use the "muffin method" of mixing: Put all your dry ingredients in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another, then pour the wet into the dry. Mix only enough to incorporate. Overmixing develops gluten too much, giving you pancakes that are tough and leathery. Leave some lumps, and your pancakes will be as soft and tender.
Cooking: Pour your batter onto your griddle. If you don't have a griddle, use a cast iron pan. If you don't have a cast iron pan, use whatever wide, flat pan you have. If you don't have a wide, flat pan, get one. I never grease the pan, but, if you want, you could add just a bit of oil or butter, then pour the batter. After about a minute, when the pancake bottom is golden brown and bubbles form and begin to pop on the top, flip and brown the other side to cook through.
Variations on a theme
Even if your pancakes are perfect, you might like a little change of pace. In that case, you can add grains to the mix, dress up your batter with a more novel dairy element than milk or dabble with some banana pancakes. Just take my basic pancake recipe and make the following tweaks.
Oats. Grains such as oats have been shown to be good for your heart. Generally, you can't go wrong with a 50/50 mix of wheat flour to grain in your batter; the flour still gives your pancakes that nice fluffiness, while the oats add texture and nutritional value.