Thick-moist and fluffy American Pancakes

I remember the first time I saw american pancakes was from the old series The Brady Bunch
family when I was about eight. I remember I was droooling over those tall
stacks of thick fluffy pancakes with melting butter on top and lots of brown caramel-y
syrup. And since then I have this picture in my mind of how it would taste. I
was imagining it should be moist, soft and fluffy....absorbing those sweet
syrup (which I thought was caramel back then instead of maple syrup) and creamy
salty butter. Well....we didn't grew up eating pancakes for breakfast in
Indonesia, so, that stacks of pancakes stayed as just a dream for a while.

A couple of years later I suddenly found this imported pancake mix at the supermarket...an
american brand...with exactly the same pancake stacks picture on the package,
just as I remembered it from the TV. I was so excited and begging and begging
my mom to buy it for us (it was quite expensive since at that time we didn't
have that much imported stuffs). So we bought it....I made
it.....AND!!!!well.....it was okay, but it was not the moist and fluffy pancake
I had in my mind for years.

Growing up I kept on searching and searching for the perfect pancake recipe. I didn't give
up, until one day I found this recipe on a magazine my mom's bought back then.
I remember I had two big books filled with cut-off recipes from that
magazine...just like what my mom did when she was just got married. So I
tried....and it was really good, much better than the package. But I still
missed that fluffiness. So then I made my second batch, with egg whites and
yolks separated and beat the egg whites to stiff peak.

And there it was...my childhood dream american pancakes...exactly the way I've always imagined.

Fluffy American Pancakes

makes about 15 @12 cm diameter pancakes

225 gr self raising flour

2 eggs, separated

300 ml milk

pinch of salt

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Sieve self raising flour in a bowl, make a whole in the middle and throw in the egg yolks, salt, sugar, and vanilla exctract. Pour the milk in the middle while gently whisking until you got a smooth batter.

2. Mix in the melted butter.

3. Beat the egg whites to a stiff peak and mix it gently with the pancake batter, do not overmix!! because you want to keep those air bubbles in the pancakes.

4. Warm a pancake pan, or just normal flat pan. With medium heat on spoon the pancakes at the pan. Wait until you see small bubbles coming up on the batter. Flip it and cook the other side until both side has nice brown colour.

5. Serve warm with butter (I prefer salted) and your favorite syrup.