Are you tired of golden-brown blobs of tasteless fluff on your plate? Are regular pancakes just too damn sissy for you? Well I have the answer. From the Johnny Boy Institute of Manly Cooking for Manly Men comes the MANCAKE. Yeah, that's right. It's a pancake, but manlier. Don't actually call it a mancake, though, 'cause that's a dumb name.

This serves two people with no significant regard for their health and a burning desire to stretch their stomachs to superhuman proportions. Maybe three normal people. Sometimes, one of me.

You will need:

Equipment
A cast iron1 frying pan
2 mixing bowls
Something to flip with, of course
egg whisk

Dry Ingredients
1.5 cups of whole wheat flour
3 teaspoons of baking powder
3 tablespoons of sugar
Cinnamon

Wet Ingredients
1.5 cups of milk
1 large brown egg
~1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
~1 teaspoon vanilla extract
~2 teaspoons canola oil or similar oil

You can use white egg and white flour if you want, but brown egg and whole wheat flour is inestimably superior.

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and all of the egg, olive oil, vanilla & milk in the other. Get your pan heated up nice and hot now - this is the tricky bit, because best results are achieved in a very narrow temperature range. I don't actually know what that temperature is, but it should be in the higher end of medium.

Now take a deep breath, prepare yourself to defy the basic tenets of mundane pancakery, and pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, while stirring quickly until no lumps remain. Once this is done, you are on the clock, bitch. Yeah, that's right. You now have some whisked up pancake goo, with DANGEROUS CHEMICAL REACTIONS happening inside. Don't fuck with it anymore, or you will disrupt the work of the baking powder. In about two minutes you will be ready to pour. Take the whisk out of the batter & put it away. Hell, you have time, go ahead and clean it too.

Okay, are you ready? Your batter is risen and your pan is hot. The fey energies of your unholy creation should be crackling melodramatically, causing clocks to run backwards, pets to speak in tongues and neighbourhood children to be born with freakish spatula-arms for years to come. John Williams may be conducting a symphony in your vicinity. Do not be concerned, for you are mighty.

Put some of the canola oil on the pan. It should be just enough to spread around the entire cooking surface without too much left over. If it smokes a lot, your pan is too hot. If it smokes a tiny little bit, you're probably in the right spot. Pour2 some batter in the pan. It will continue to spread after you stop pouring, and it should mostly fill the pan at that point. Yes, it's big. Get over it.

When bubbles appear on the surface, your pancake is golden-brown, so don't even think about flipping it then. Don't de-stick the pancake from the pan and peek underneath or I'll track you down and smite you with my special pancake spatula. Anyway, your pancake should be as close to burnt as you can stand. Very dark brown is what we're going for here. When those bubbles don't come up and pop so much and the edges are starting to look dry, your pancake is ready to flip. This varies with the thickness of the pancake, of course. The second side doesn't take nearly as long to cook.

Update: I forgot the most important part! You must completely re-oil the pan after each pancake. You don't want so much oil the the edges go crispy, but you do want lots.

Serve with butter and maple syrup. Keep in mind that regular pancakes will stick to your ribs. These will make you feel like you've swallowed napalm. Don't eat them too regularly or you will probably die.


1 This is important. I've tried it on girly teflon and stainless steel. Don't bother.
2 Maybe you could spoon it out, but that's crazy talk if you ask me.