Comeback Café’s Buttermilk Pancakes
I had longtime dreams to open a restaurant with a casual atmosphere, good fresh food plate du jour style. It was 1992, I was pregnant with our first child and had gotten a temporary job at a UC Santa Barbara sorority house. The woman who ran the sorority house was from Texas. She was a little rough around the edges but sweet on the inside. One day, she asked me to make pancakes for the house’s breakfast. I quickly told her I was going to make some crepes instead, which did not fly well with her. As a response, she gave me this pancake recipe from her mother and asked me to follow it to the letter.
The buttermilk pancakes were fantastic! So fluffy, so tasty and so simple.
The rest is history. The Comeback Café was created in my head, and in the next few months the restaurant was born—and so was our first child.
Comeback Café’s Buttermilk Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon white sugar
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tablespoon butter, softened
- ¾ cup buttermilk
Instructions
- Preheat a cast-iron pan or nonstick skillet to medium heat.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy.
- Add flour, baking powder, sugars, salt and soft butter cut in small pieces; finally, add the buttermilk.
- Mix all together gently. Do not over-beat; you do not want the batter to be smooth. It needs to be a little lumpy for a fluffy pancake.
- To cook, add a little butter to coat the heated pan.
- Pour ½ cup of batter into the pan. The pancakes should be about 4 to 5 inches wide.
- Let them cook slowly, until bubbles form on top, about 2 minutes. Flip, and let cook for an additional minute. Set aside on a plate and keep warm while cooking the remaining pancakes.
- Serve 2 pancakes per person, dressed with additional butter, maple syrup or sliced seasonal fruit and a sprinkle of powdered sugar.
Nutrition
Maya Schoop-Rutten
Maya Schoop-Rutten owned and operated the Comeback Café from 1992 to 2003 on lower State Street in Santa Barbara, offering ample servings of breakfast and lunch. She opened Chocolate Maya shortly afterwards, just a block away on Gutierrez Street.
