Instructions: Grease the griddle very, very lightly with vegetable oil, margarine, or butter. (If your griddle has a nonstick coating, dont grease it.) Preheat griddle to 400 F. Beat eggs, shortening, and milk in a large bowl until well blended. Add flour, baking powder, sugar and salt to liquid ingredients, and mix just enough to make a creamy batter with some lumps.

Spoon or ladle batter onto hot griddle. Turn pancakes over when edges look dry and bubbles cover the top. Our homemade pancakes were moist and light, golden brown in color. Eggs dominated the flavor and aroma, but the pancakes had a touch of sweetness. Wed rate them very good. When we made them substituting buttermilk for regular milk, we thought they were just about perfect. If you substitute vegetable oil for margarine or butter, youll get less saturated fat-but the pancakes wont brown as much. If the tops of the pancakes bubble and bottoms dont brown, the heat source if too low; if they brown before they bubble, the heat is too high. For blueberry pancakes, lightly fold in 1 cup frozen or well-drained canned blueberies after the batter is mixed. For whole-wheat pancakes, use half whole-wheat flour and half white flour. For buttermilk pancakes, substitute buttermilk for the milk and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda for 1 teaspoon of the baking powder.

Yield 18 four-inch pancakes

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