For Lack of Buttermilk

What do you do when you want buttermilk pancakes, the Aunt Jemima's all out, and you have no buttermilk in the house? Try a little sour cream - it works in coffee cake, why not pancakes? These hotcakes come together quickly and cook in no time, and they have the tangy richness of a great buttermilk flapjack.

Sour Cream Pancakes

1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 c milk
1/3 c sour cream
1 egg
1/3 c melted butter or vegetable oil

Whisk the five dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. Measure your milk and sour cream into a measuring cup, beat in the egg, add the oil, and pour the mixture into the dry ingredients. Whisk it all together until smooth. Pour half cup ladles onto a hot griddle and cook until the top starts to dry, then flip and cook until browned on the bottom. Pile on some blueberry rhubarb jam, maple syrup, or what have you. Eat! Makes about six 6" pancakes, or many more silver dollars.

Once upon a time, in a better, richer day, butter was made from cultured cream. I'm not talking about the hastily cultured, pasteurized sour cream we get in stores today. I'm talking about raw cream from a cow that is allowed to rest for a day and thicken naturally, more akin to the creme fraiche they adore in France and Switzerland. The result is a nuttier, more delicious butter, and wonderful buttermilk that isn't anything like what is sold commercially here. Unfortunately, the City of New York has strict rules about keeping livestock in residential buildings, otherwise I'd have a Jersey cow or two for making butter, cream and cheese. I'll bring you some raw milk cheeses in this week's cheese picks, but until the FDA relaxes a little on the raw milk scene, we'll all just have to move to farms.