1tablespoonmelted unsalted butter plus more for greasing
Apple Topping
2tablespoonunsalted butter
2Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced into ½ inch cubes
2tablespoonlight brown sugar
½teaspoonground cinnamon
¼teaspoonsea salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 200°F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda until combined. Make a well in the center.
In another bowl, mix together the milk, ricotta, eggs, vanilla extract and melted butter. Add to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat and coat with butter. Pour ¼ cup of the batter into the skillet and cook until bubbles appear on the surface, about 2 minutes. Flip with a spatula and cook for another 2 minutes or until golden brown. Wipe skillet and repeat process. Keep the pancakes in the oven until all are ready to eat.
Heat a medium skillet over medium heat and add butter. Once butter is melted, add apples, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt and cook, stirring occasionally for 3-5 minute or until the apples are starting to soften. Top pancakes with apples.
Notes
Baking Powder Freshness - you may not realize this but baking powder and baking soda actually expires pretty quickly. Use baking powder that is less than a year old since it has been opened. If you use older baking powder, it won’t be powerful enough to help leaven the donuts. You can test it by stirring half a teaspoon of baking powder into a cup of hot water. It will immediately start to fizz and release carbon dioxide gas if it’s still fresh enough to use.
Whisk Dry Ingredients - to avoid lumps in this pancakes recipe, whisk the dry ingredients before adding to the wet ingredients.
Don't Overmix - to add to the above, you don't want to overmix the batter. You want to have some lumps to create fluffy pancakes.
Rest the Batter - if you have the time, rest the batter for 10 minutes so the flour absorbs the liquid. I do this as I'm warming up the pan.
Use an Electric Skillet - a large electric skillet allows you to make multiple pancakes at a time, but you can use a cast iron skillet as well.
Wipe Skillet - by using butter, it will eventually burn so wipe the skillet between pancake batches to keep from having burned pancakes.
Don't Flip Too Early - wait until bubbles pop and form holes that stay open on the surface of the batter before flipping the pancakes.