Look, I know you probably already have a favorite mix for pancakes. I know you prefer the yellow box, or the blue bag or whatever. I know you may add a squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of vanilla or something else to make them even better.

And I’m not trying to fight with you. I’m just saying that my recipe is better than your recipe.

Yes, it takes a little longer to mix together. I probably wouldn’t have tried it myself if our eldest, Julia, hadn’t had so many food allergies.

See, when she was tiny and I discovered that she was deathly allergic to peanuts and some tree nuts and should therefore also avoid seeds as well, I adjusted accordingly. I knew Chinese restaurants were out. So were ice cream parlors. Bakeries were even trickier, so I began baking her cakes and cookies. Eventually, I bought books that showed me how to decorate birthday cakes with candy melts and gumballs and Laffy Taffy and other ingredients I could find easily in a small town.

But then, for several years, she also developed a soy allergy. Soy allergies are tricky beasts. You are probably thinking that avoiding soy is about as easy as avoiding Chinese restaurants, though. I mean, what else is soy in besides soy sauce?

If you start checking labels, though, you will quickly find out that soy is in tons of products in the United States. Almost all breads and buns. Canned cream soups. Tons of snack cakes. Lots of frozen prepared foods, from meatballs to corndogs. Every doughnut we have ever checked.

So I began cooking even more things from scratch. I learned to triple the recipe for meatballs so I could keep some in the freezer for quick meals. I found a recipe for cream soups that was far better than any I’d ever tried in a can.

And I found this recipe for pancakes. It was on Allrecipes, which is something like Wikipedia for cooking types. It was my go-to resource for recipes in the days after the internet was widely available but before cooking blogs were ubiquitous and Pinterest existed to promote them. (Yes, I am old enough to remember those days.)

I have made these pancakes for so many years that I ought to have the recipe memorized. (But I don’t. I don’t even remember my own phone number, though, so that means nothing.)

And when Julia passed her soy challenge this year, we were all excited about the fact she could eat more things again. We bought Shipley’s doughnuts the very next day. I even made a chicken casserole using creamed soup from the can. (It was awful; I guess homemade ruined me forever on that one.)

But these pancakes are one recipe I can’t imagine ditching, even though there are more convenient alternatives. The pancakes are light and tender. They taste like a treat, even without syrup. And if I’m going to the trouble of cooking pancakes, I definitely want them to taste like a treat.

FLUFFY PANCAKES

Makes 6 or 7 saucer-sized pancakes

Ingredients
3/4 c. milk (I prefer whole but any type will do)
1 Tbsp. white vinegar
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
2 Tbsp. melted butter, plus more for buttering the griddle
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions
■ Melt butter in microwave inside a microwave-safe bowl or mug. (This takes about 30 seconds in my microwave.) Set aside to cool. In a mixing bowl or large measuring cup, pour milk and add vinegar. Stir the vinegar into the milk and set aside to “sour” the milk. If you double this recipe — which I always do for my family of five — do NOT double the vinegar. Too much vinegar will cause your pancakes to be flat and pale.)
■ While butter cools and milk sours, begin heating the griddle. I use an electric griddle set to 300 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
■ Add egg, butter and vanilla to the milk. Whisk.
■ Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Whisk until no streaks of flour remain. DO NOT continue to stir until lumps disappear. The lumps are actually bubbles of gas created by mixing the leavening and the soured milk. Stirring them out will cause your pancakes to be denser and tougher, though they will still taste delicious. Grease the griddle with butter. Pour batter onto griddle by about 1/4 cup measures. (I use a cookie scoop for this. An ice cream scoop would also work well.)
■ If you want to add blueberries or chocolate chips, sprinkle those on top of batter at this point.
■ When the bottom is golden, usually after about 4 minutes, turn the pancake to finish cooking. The second side will usually take about half the time of the first side. Try to turn the pancake only one time through the process. Serve immediately.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.