Best for: Feeding a crowd from one griddle — and closing this series the way it should close: smiling.
Folklore says Paul Bunyan’s lumber camp ran the biggest kitchen on earth, and its griddle was the wonder of the North Woods: a flapjack griddle so enormous the crew greased it by strapping slabs of bacon to their feet and skating across the hot iron, and the flapjacks themselves were flipped with shovels and hauled to the tables by the wagonload. Loggers ate them by the stack, with syrup by the pitcher, because a man who fells trees all day does not count flapjacks.
Our grilled take is honest lumberjack cooking at household scale: big buttermilk flapjacks on the grill’s griddle, bacon first (the skating is optional), syrup without restraint. If this series has a moral, it’s his — appetites are to be respected, not managed.
Grill: Griddle over medium heat (about 375°F surface). Equipment: Grill with a flat-top griddle or a large cast-iron griddle pan, wide spatula. Course: Breakfast.
Ingredients
Total: 25 minutes
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 cups buttermilk
- 3 eggs
- 6 tablespoons melted butter, plus more for the griddle
- Bacon, for greasing and for the table
- Maple syrup, warmed, in pitchers — plural
Directions
Mix the dry crew. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in the biggest bowl you own. Lumberjack rule: the batter bowl should look slightly too large for the job.
Bring the wet together. In a second bowl, whisk the buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter, then pour the wet into the dry and stir just until combined — a lumpy batter makes tall flapjacks; a smooth one makes tough ones.
Grease it the Bunyan way. Heat the griddle on the grill to medium, cook the bacon on it first if you’re serving bacon, and leave its drippings as your grease (skating across is not required at home). Otherwise, butter the iron well.
Ladle them big. Pour the batter in generous 1/2-cup ladles — these are flapjacks, not silver dollars — and spread each slightly with the back of the ladle.
Flip at the bubbles. Cook until the tops are covered in bubbles that pop and stay open and the edges look set, about 2 to 3 minutes, then flip once (shovel optional) and cook 1 to 2 minutes more, until deep golden.
Serve in stacks. Pile the flapjacks high on warm plates, butter between the layers, and set the warmed syrup pitchers in the middle of the table. Refills are the whole point.
Grilling tip: Flapjacks forgive everything except a crowded griddle — leave room to flip, and keep finished ones warm in a low oven while the next crew cooks.
