This Simple Trick will Prevent You from Throwing Out the First Pancake

The First Pancake

There seem to be three universals in life: everyone is born, everyone dies, and everybody has to throw out the first pancake. That first pancake often resembles our broken dreams—deformed, undercooked on one side, and burned on the other, with no place else to go but the garbage. 

The next ones are inevitably better, of course, but the first pancake will always call to us from the trash. 

But, what if we told you it didn't have to be this way? What if we told you that one simple trick could prevent all this heartache and make you a better flapjack maker?

Butter Makes the World Go Round...And Perfect Pancakes

The answer is so easy that we're regretting all the pancakes we've lost over the years. 

Heat up your skillet or griddle to the desired temperature, then take a cold stick of butter and run it quickly over the surface and sides. Do not linger. You only need enough to coat the skillet.

Now go ahead and start making your pancakes. This method works because it greases the skillet with just enough fat to keep the pancakes from sticking, but there also isn't a pool of butter that gets soaked up by the first pancake—that pancake normally gets "fried" in butter because of the excess, resulting in a trash pancake. 

Keep that stick of butter in the fridge so that you can do it all over again between pancakes, as needed. 

And there you have it, first pancake and dreams restored. 

Hungry for more? Here are The 99 Best Pancake Recipes You've Ever Seen.