Yummy Oat Pancakes

My mom was never much of a baker; she'd rather eyeball measurements and proportions till she got something to taste just right than be precise. This is the reason why I never learned to bake anything fancier than those pre-cut Pillsbury sugar cookies. But I've been able to get by with mostly just cooking, and I've never really been into stuff like cake or cupcakes anyways (I'm more of a straight up chocolate kinda girl).

Where pancakes fall in the baking-cooking divide, I'm not entirely sure. You obviously don't bake them in the oven, you fry them on the stove top, but making the batter is very much like making cake batter in that your measurements have to be exact. Too much flour, the batter's too thick; too much milk, the batter's too thin. Either way, those are some bad pancakes. Needless to say, I can't just guess at how much of each ingredient I will need. I'm going to need some practiced hands if I want to make one of my favorite breakfast foods: oat pancakes.

My first experience with oat pancakes was at my best friend's house around fifth grade or so. Her mom, a woman who rather enjoys baking and has a knack for it, made these delightful little speckled rounds that resembled pancakes, but were oh-so-much more than that. They were fluffy, as a pancake should be, but textured; you could taste and feel every oat and grain in them. To me, this was a new and pleasant experience for my mouth, but texture like that is not for everybody. Lightly sweetened with cinnamon, they were especially good with butter and powered sugar.

But I haven't had them in years. There's more work to them than with regular pancakes, so they don't get made very often, and I haven't been over to my friend's house often enough in the last few years to catch her mom on a day when she's going to the trouble of making them. Lucky for me, though, my best friend is also my current roommate.

So after finishing up our foray into pesto sauce last week, she suggested we call her mom and try to make an old favorite for ourselves. I enthusiastically agreed.

And tonight's the night! Sort of. First thing's first, though, you have to soak the oats in buttermilk overnight. I measured out two cups of old-fashioned oats and two and half cups of buttermilk, and then my roommate started to combine them.

The buttermilk was as thick as a melted milkshake, but the two ingredients gradually mixed together. I made a face. The mixture began to look more and more like, well, blown chunks. I wasn't too surprised, the batter was supposed to be chunky, but it did weird me out just a little.

          "Looks gross," I said.
          "Smells gross," she said.

Sure enough, the bowl smelled unexpectedly like sour cream. As strange as it is, that's what buttermilk smells like apparently. Nevertheless, as we covered the bowl and slid it into the fridge to sit until morning, we were giddy with excitement.

This was only a few hours ago; tomorrow I will wake up and fill the kitchen with the smell of not sour cream, but lovely oat pancakes (which, although they have a taste all their own, smell pretty much just like regular pancakes). So get excited, because my next post will be delicious!