The Best Zucchini Pancakes

Pancakes are a favorite in our house. I love making new and improved recipes on old favorites as well as make up completely new ideas. Last night we had these:

Zucchini Pancakes. I made them with just straight all purpose flour which is out of the norm but I put zucchini in them so that cancels out the unhealthy right?














Now, I am going to tell you the secret ingredient to amazingly awesome zucchini pancakes. Are you ready?


It's a lemon.

I know, I know you were going to say zucchini but that would be the obvious ingredient in Zucchini Pancakes. Lemon give the pancakes a burst of freshness and also helps make them completely light and fluffy which is, to me, the sign of a good pancake. (Aside from the taste of course.)










And these are light and fluffy and completely delicious. Topped with butter and swimming in syrupy goodness. Oh yummmmm.

Zucchini Pancakes

Ingredients

4 cups Flour (I used AP but you can use any combo of flours that you want)
1/4 cup Sugar
2 tablespoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 scant teaspoon Kosher Salt
4 cups Milk
1/4 cup Oil or Melted Butter
4 Eggs
1 Lemon
2-3 Zucchini (depending on their size or 1 monster zucchini)

Grate the zucchini using the smaller holes on your grater. I use short strokes so the zucchini pieces are smaller. You want about 1/2 cup of grated zucchini per cup of flour or a little more if you want more zucchini in your pancakes. Whatever you are in the mood for.

In a bowl, dump in all the dry ingredients and stir them up. Add the zucchini.

Make sure your lemon is really clean and zest the entire lemon rind into the mix.

Stir it up a bit to get it all mixed.

Juice the now naked lemon.

Add all the wet ingredient to the bowl.

Stir it all up just until it is mixed. DO NOT over mix the batter. This is so crucial to getting perfectly light and fluffy pancakes instead of dense and chewy.

Make sure your favorite pancake pan or griddle is hot. The best way is to see if water can dance. If it has no moves, it isn't hot enough, if it sizzles and disappears then it is too hot.
Grease the pan ever so lightly if you need to then pour the batter by scant 1/2 cup fulls onto the pan.
In a minute or two they will be ready to flip when the edges start to dry out and you see bubbles starting to appear on the top.
Flip them gently and let them cook about a minute more, the bottom will be be all nice and golden and the middle will spring back if lightly pressed.

Stack them high slather them in butter and drench them in syrup. Then dig in.