Fluffy Pancakes

Buttermilk! Let's be honest, the average household probably never has buttermilk in their fridge. I'm a pancake junky, and I literally never have buttermilk in my house ever. If I want to make buttermilk pancakes I've got to decide in advance, and make sure to buy buttermilk.

Now, I had read that there was an easy substitution that was similar to buttermilk. It involves mixing vinegar with you milk and letting it "sour." I believe the vinegar then reacts with the baking soda causing it to rise. I never felt quite right about this and put off trying it. Finally this past weekend I caved and decided to give it a shot.

I flicked through recipes until I found this one. Seemed simple enough, so I gave it a shot. These pancakes were fantastic. Light and airy, without being thin and wimpy. Rose up nicely, big and fluffy, without being overly dense and cakey. Sweet, but not overly sweet. Not too much flour, no metallic taste from the baking powder. A very excellent combination, and a must have pancake recipe.

Fluffy Pancakes

Ingredients
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp white vinegar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
2 tbsp butter, melted
cooking spray

Directions
1. Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour".
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
3. Whisk egg and butter into "soured" milk. 4. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.
5. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray.
6. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

Recipe courtesy of Allrecipes.com
Follow on Twitter @Allrecipes

Enjoy,
- Jack

Top Ten Cover Songs

Most beginnings start with cover songs. Rock and roll began mostly with covers. Three of The Beatles first four albums each contained six cover songs. Many of Elvis' songs were covers. Even today, many bands get started by playing covers, as they slowly build up their own repertoire of songs.

More often than not, a cover song is a tribute, an homage, out of great respect. Some cover songs are amazing, even, on rare occasions, surpassing the original in greatness. However, the flip side of that is that many covers are terribly unlistenable. Some covers stay very true to the original, making little to no changes. Others expand and experiment, sometimes sounding almost nothing like the original.

The catalog of covers is seemingly never ending. The Beatles' "Yesterday" and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" have both been covered hundreds of times each. Rage Against The Machine released an entire album consisting solely of covers (Renegades). Many are worth listening to, and this list easily could have been a top fifty. However, after much struggling, and rewriting, I have come up with my ten.

Top Ten Cover Songs:

10. Joe Cocker - With A Little Help From My Friends
Generally, as a rule, I find covers of Beatles songs to be distasteful. It's almost sacrilegious to even attempt to cover one of the all time greatest bands. Many people have tried, and some are downright awful. However, Joe Cocker's take on this gem is absolutely amazing. Led by a collection of organs and piercing guitar, played by none other than Jimmy Page, Cocker doesn't stick to the basic formula. He puts his own touches on the song, bending it to his will. His voice is perfect, giving a sense of uncertainty, sounding like a man who truly needs his friends for support. He caps it off by bringing in a wonderful cast of female singers to back him up, Rosetta Hightower and Sunny Wheetman. Joe Cocker is one of the only people to have covered a Beatles song who needs to feel no shame.

9. Cat Power - Sea Of Love
Originally released in the 50's by an artist names Phil Phillips, Cat Power puts a beautiful twist on this tune. A very simple, yet beautiful, cover, Cat Power takes a very minimalist approach to this song. Armed only with her soft voice, and gentle strumming, she sweetly carries you away as she confesses her true love.

8. Rufus Wainwright - Hallelujah
Perhaps one of the greatest songs ever written, Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" has been covered over 300 times. Rufus's take at it is quite beautiful. His piano rises and falls like the wave upon the shore, and his strong voice knows precisely when to soar, and when to whisper.

7. Taken By Trees - Sweet Child O' Mine
Known best for her vocal contributions to Peter, Bjorn and John's "Young Folks", Victoria Bergsman is the force behind the one woman project Taken By Trees. Here she takes a classic guitar riff and reworks it into a gorgeous piano melody. Her soft and sweet vocals take a song originally written about a lover and transform it, sounding more like a mother singing about her daughter. Joining the piano, is a simple acoustic guitar, and some tight, snare heavy drumming. The song slowly builds up, and rises as a chorus of voices sing a variation of Slash's famous guitar solo, before fading away.

6. Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Inspired by John Cale's cover, Buckley reworked this tender ballad into a guitar masterpiece. His guitar bubbles and sighs, never rising too high, seeming as pained as its master. Buckley's vocals start off a trembling whisper, and slowly rise until he is crying to the heavens. Buckley was able to channel his own pain, and combined it with the pain of the lyrics. By the end of the song you were a part of his sorrow.

5. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along The Watchtower
Released within six months of Bob Dylan's version, Jimi Hendrix's take on this song was so powerful that in future live performances Dylan played it more like Hendrix's version than his own. Jimi took a folk song and amped it up the only way he knew how. Fuzzed chords, lyrical guitar work and one of Jimi's most powerful vocal performances made this song an instant hit, but it was the solo that put it over the top. A four part solo that Hendrix carefully crafted, started simple, then slowly bubbled up, before rocketing into space.

4. Ryan Adams - Wonderwall
Backed only by a solemnly picked acoustic guitar and an ominous hum, Ryan Adams tackles this Oasis hit beautifully. Much more stripped down and slow than the original, Ryan's smoky voice echoes as though he is singing in a giant chamber. He truly sounds as though he needs to be saved, and only one person can save him. At the end a reverberating piano joins in to carry him away.

3. Johnny Cash - Hurt
Released near the end of his career, Johnny's take on this Nine Inch Nails song was so good, Trent Reznor admitted it was no longer his song. Johnny had connected with it so deeply it became his own song. His voice sounds so weathered, he truly sounds like a man who has felt, and caused, a lot of pain. A driving piano joins Johnny's guitar for the choruses, pounding home the lines. The final chorus rises higher and higher with the piano, before dropping away as Johnny's voice finishes it.

2. Nirvana - The Man Who Sold The World
One of the last recordings before Cobain's suicide was the magnificent Unplugged at MTV. Of the several covers they performed, the high point was this gem by David Bowie. Nirvana's performance helped put Bowie back on the map, introducing his music to a new generation. Mainly acoustic, save for Kurt's guitar leads, the bands take on this song was wonderful. Kurt's strained voice adds a lovely touch to the song, and Krist's bass bounces up and down through the choruses. The icing on the cake is Cobain's reinterpretation of the outro, transforming Bowie's mystic chanting into a beautiful, humming guitar solo that seems to float forever.

1. Gary Jules and Michael Andrews - Mad World
Originally recorded for the Donnie Darko soundtrack, this Tears For Fears cover was so popular the artists would eventually release it as a single the following year. A very minimalist cover, the song is led by hauntingly beautiful piano, and backed by deep ominous cello. Jules's voice whispers tales of sorrow, before echoing into a hole in space and time as he softly sings "Mad World."

- Jack

Banana Pancakes with Peanut Butter Syrup

One of my all time favourite combinations, peanut butter and banana is a well known pair for sandwiches. However, as a pancake combination it is a bit more rare. When I woke up Sunday morning I had already planned on making banana pancakes. My childhood favourite, my dads specialty, banana pancakes was a staple of Sunday breakfasts growing up. However, while flicking around various recipes, I stumbled upon a recipe for peanut butter syrup. How could I resist? I absolutely had to try it. So I whipped up a batch for the whole family and tested it out.

First of all, there is the actual pancakes. I know some people like to mash the bananas and stir them into the batter. I've never actually tried this, and for the purpose of a future blog I suppose I will give it a shot. But not this time. No, I always slice my bananas into the batter. I find the chunks enjoyable and parts of the banana that protrude from the batter caramelize on the griddle, bringing out a really nice sweetness from the banana. The pancake recipe I used was alright, but not fantastic. The pancakes had nice flavour, and weren't too dense. However, the batter was quite runny, and produced very thin pancakes. It would probably do better with less milk, or perhaps a thicker milk (I used 1% on this occasion). The bananas tasted fantastic and weren't too overpowering.

Then we come to the peanut butter syrup. A very quick, simple recipe, with amazing results. The syrup was absolutely delicious. Not too sweet, not too salty, just the right peanut butter flavour, while staying true to the pancake syrup tradition. The syrup was such a hit in my household, my daughter had to be stopped from licking it off her pancakes. It paired wonderfully with the bananas. Elvis would approve.

Banana Pancakes with Peanut Butter Syrup

Pancake ingredients
1 banana, sliced
1 cup flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 tsp vanilla

Syrup ingredients
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 maple syrup

Directions
1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a mixing bowl.
2. In a separate mixing bowl, combine egg, milk, vanilla and vegetable oil.
3. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and whisk together.
4. Stir in the banana slices.
5. Pour 1/4 cup of dough for each batch onto greased skillet and cook each pancake for about 1-2 minutes per side.
6. In a small pot, combine peanut butter and maple syrup. Whisk over medium-low heat, until well mixed. Serve warm.

Enjoy,

- Jack

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

One of the more common pancakes is the chocolate chip pancake. Simple, straightforward, yet easily botched. Too many chips, and its just a gooey mess. The kids won't complain, but the pancake will be nothing more than a canvas, left unnoticed. Bad pancake recipe, and the chips will not be enough to hide an overly dense, chewy slab of dough. No, no, the chocolate chip pancake must be done just right.

For the purpose of this blog I am avoiding just using the same recipe over and over, simply replacing the fillings each time. I feel that would be fairly repetitive. It would be far better to try a brand new recipe each time. So today I searched for a recipe for chocolate chip pancakes.

I was lucky enough to come across a fantastic recipe. The pancakes were light, fluffy, not too dense. They had a slight sweetness, but not too sweet, allowing the chocolate to do the sweetening. The baking powder was perfect, too much can give any recipe a horrendous metallic taste. The proportion of chips was perfect. Enough to make a strong flavour, but not so many that you feel as though you are eating a chocolate bar left in your pocket too long, rich and sweet, but an overpowering, gooey mess. They tasted well with maple syrup, but would also be really good with just butter and a light sprinkling of icing sugar. If you are looking to please your sweet tooth, but don't want to fuss with any extensive recipes, these are a quick easy treat.

Note: Our household was all out of regular milk, so I used almond milk. Gives a nice thickness, not thin like skim milk. However, use caution as some almond milks are sweetened, which could cause your pancakes to be much sweeter.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Ingredients
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1 cup flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 cup almond milk (actual recipe calls for regular milk)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 tsp vanilla

Directions
1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a mixing bowl.
2. In a separate mixing bowl, combine egg, milk, vanilla and vegetable oil.
3. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and whisk together.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Pour 1/4 cup of dough for each batch onto greased skillet and cook each pancake for about 1-2 minutes per side.

Recipe courtesy of thisgalcooks.com
Follow on Twitter @ThisGalJulie

Enjoy,

- Jack

Top Ten Instrumental Songs

There is likely no type of song harder to write than an instrumental song. When a song has words, has a voice, tells a story, it is much easier to keep a person hooked, to keep them entertained. To do so without words is a much greater challenge.

A great instrumental song must draw you in, must make you feel something. Whether it makes you feel sad, or soothes you, or pumps you up, it must ignite some spirit within you. A truly fantastic instrumental can draw a tear to your eye, or it can get you out of your seat and light a fire under your ass. It can make time disappear, a two minute song seemingly lasting an eternity. It can be as simple as a single piano, or as complex as a full orchestra. Regardless, it always puts the musicianship at the forefront of the song. When written well, an instrumental song can move you just as well, if not better, than a song with words.

The Top Ten Instrumental Songs:

10. Doug Martsch - Instrumental
On his largely acoustic solo album, Built To Spill's frontman paid great homage to legends like Mississippi Fred McDowell. One of the few grungier, upbeat songs, this instrumental finds Martsch trying his hand at the dirty Mississippi Delta blues. His slide work is fantastic, and will have you grooving along in no time.

9. Pixies - Cecilia Ann
The opening track off Bossanova, and a cover of The Surftones, Cecilia Ann is two minutes of pure surf rock, smeared with Joey Santiago's drilling blend of punk rock and pure noise. The addition of the almost gothic synths, a change to Pixies sound from their previous efforts, make it a haunting, yet powerful, song.

8. Caustic Resin - Longdrive Jam
This reverb washed blend of druggy psychedelia and blues, starts slow, then quickly builds up to chaos. It crashes all around you, and then, right as it seems destined to careen off the tracks, it screeches to a halt, leaving you wanting more, leaving you wondering where it could have gone, and thinking how fun the wreckage may have been.

7. Booker T. & The MGs - Green Onions
One of the godfathers of instrumental rock, Green Onions opened the door to a world of new possibilities. Built around Booker T's rumbling Hammond organ, punctuated by Steve Cropper's stabbing telecaster, this dirty groove set the world ablaze, and put the band, who, until this point, had simply been the Stax Records house band, on the map. It may not have been the first rock instrumental released, but it remains one of the all time greatest, and its inspiration can be heard worldwide.

6. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
Perhaps one of the broadest, most ambitious albums ever recorded, Smashing Pumpkins manage to jump from throat shredding metal to tear stained balladry without batting an eye, and it all begins with this gorgeous melody. Backed by strings, Billy Corgan single handedly raises the sun on this record, with beautiful piano and humming synthesizers. Ever the master composer, Corgan never lets the song build too high, or repeat too long, just enough to hook you in, and have you clinging on for more.

5. Fugazi - Arpeggiator
The closest thing to punk jazz, this powerful blast from End Hits is a furious lesson in musicianship. The two guitars weave in and out of one another battling their way up and down the scales. Every time they seem destined to careen into total chaos, they are steered back into place, held together by the strength of bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty.

4. Pink Floyd - One Of These Days
Standing alone, on an ancient mountaintop, winds swirl around you. Suddenly an echoey bass pulses through you, picking up speed and intensity, accompanied by backwards rushing cymbals and keyboards. Eventually David Gilmour rips his way into the song with furious slide guitar. Right as it seems prepared to take off, it all drops away, save a buzzing bass line, and a single, uttered threat, meant for a BBC radio DJ. Then the full band swings in, pounding bass, playful piano, piercing organ, and buzz saw slide guitar.

3. Sigur Ros - Untitled No. 3 (Samskeyti)
The Icelandic explorers start this ethereal wonder with the softest whispering of a humming organ. Then the most simple and beautiful piano melody floats in, lifting the song from the softest depths, slowly raising it up to great heights. As the song rises a droning buzz fades in and helps the song soar. Right as it reaches its apex, it all melts away suddenly, and whispers of that same piano line carry you sweetly away, as it fades into the distance.

2. Patrick Street - Music For A Found Harmonium
Performed by the Irish folk group, this song was originally composed by Simon Jeffes of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. This wonderfully uplifting version starts off with foot tapping guitar, pleasantly picking and strumming the main melody. Slowly other instruments join the party, led by a fantastic fiddle, and the whole band swings through the melody a few times before dropping off at just the right moment.

1. John Frusciante - Ramparts
Recorded after rehabbing from heroin addiction, between the largely popular Californication and By The Way, this track can be found on the former Chili Peppers' solo album To Record Only Water For Ten Days. Layers of guitars bubble over one another like beautiful water fountains, as two more guitars trade bluesy solos, starting softly and building up to a powerf finish. This gorgeous song clocks in at just 1:11, yet it feels like an eternity of bliss.

- Jack

Review: IHOP - Cinna-stack pancakes

Personally, I would have liked my first review to have been somewhere a bit more adventurous and unconventional than IHOP. Perhaps a family run diner, with a pancake recipe handed down from generation to generation. Or maybe a hot new food truck, putting a creative new spin on the old classic recipe. Not that I'm a snooty food critic by any means. Trust me, I love IHOP. I just would have preferred to have gone outside the box a little bit. Regardless, today several of my coworkers wanted to go for breakfast, and the popular choice was IHOP.

I flipped through the menu, ignoring all the varieties of omelettes my coworkers would debate over, heading straight to the pancake section. Why go to a pancake house and get eggs? Before long I settled on the Cinna-stack pancakes. The description read as follows:

Our signature stack of four buttermilk pancakes, layered with a delicious cinnamon roll filling, then drizzled with rich cream cheese icing before being crowned with whipped topping.

My plate arrived, looking not much like the wonderful picture in the menu (the picture I have provided is, unfortunately, the menu picture, as my phone decided to die on me). The pancakes were thin and wimpy, slopped together. The whip cream simply came in a side bowl (not bad if you don't want all that cream, but a buzzkill for the visual presentation). The flavours of the cinnamon roll filling and cream cheese icing were good, but the cinnamon roll filling was slopped on so thickly I could not even taste the actual pancakes. Probably a good thing, as they were mere shadows of the pancakes represented throughout the menus bright pictures. Overall, the idea was good, and the flavours well represented. Unfortunately, the execution failed. Too much filling, masking poorly prepared pancakes.

- Jack

Apple Streusel Pancakes

Growing up, pancakes only came in three varieties in my household. Most days it was just plain, old pancakes, butter and syrup (not that there is anything wrong with that, that's the classic). Occasionally, as a treat, my mom would make a batch of blueberry pancakes, or my dad would whip up some of his banana pancakes. But that was the extent of our experimentation.

With an unlimited selection of filling and topping options, no food can be more creative and exciting than pancakes. They can be sweet and fruity, filled with bananas, or covered in strawberries. They can rich and decadent, bubbling with melted chocolate chips, piled high with mountains of whipped cream. They can be healthy, filled with quinoa, oats and nuts. They can even be savoury, speckled with corn, lathered in guacamole. Half the fun of pancakes is the experimentation, exploring various combinations of fillings and toppings.

I love desserts, particularly apple crisp, apple pie and, every now and then, apple streusel. So when I stumbled across a recipe for Apple Streusel Pancakes, I just had to try it. Needless to say, it did not disappoint. The pancakes were thick, but not too dense. The apples gave a nice tartness, which complimented the sweetness of the topping nicely. But for me the star was the topping. Crumbly and buttery and deliciously sweet, the topping rendered the though of adding syrup as distasteful. A little smear of butter, a heaping scoop of the streusel topping and these pancakes were absolutely delicious. If you are looking for a treat for the kids (or yourself) this is a good place to start.

Note: I am not a fan of nutmeg, and do not carry it in my house at all, so I skipped it. I also could have halved the topping recipe (or doubled the pancakes) as I had lots of topping leftover. Feel free to experiment as you see fit.

Apple Streusel Pancake recipe:

Streusel topping
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Pancakes
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and diced

Instructions:

1. Add all streusel ingredients to a food processor, process until crumbly. Set aside.

2. In a bowl add the flour, salt, baking powder, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix until well combined.

3. Make a well in the dry ingredients, add the milk, egg and vanilla. Stir until just combined. Add the apple and stir.

4. Heat an electric griddle at 350 or skillet over medium heat. Coat with cooking spray.

5. Drop about 1/4 cup of batter on the hot griddle, top with 1 to 2 Tbsp of the streusel topping.

6. Cool until the edges start to looks dry, and the underside is golden brown, about 3 minutes. Flip and cook on the other side until cooked through, about 2 minutes. Plate, top with remaining streusel.

Recipe courtesy of domesticfits.com
Follow on Twitter @domesticfits

Enjoy,

- Jack