Blueberry Pancake Day

What the day is

Blueberry Pancake Day is observed on January 28. The berry introduces one genuine complication that the plain pancake does not have.

Origin and background

Blueberry skins carry anthocyanins, the pigments responsible for the color range from red through purple to blue across many fruits. These pigments change with acidity, appearing redder in acidic conditions and shifting toward blue and then green as things turn alkaline. Pancake batter is usually raised with baking soda, which is alkaline, and that is the problem.

Stir the berries through the batter and they bruise and bleed. The released pigment meets the soda, shifts color, and the surrounding crumb turns a dull gray-green. The pancakes taste fine and look like something scraped off a wall. Scattering the berries onto the pancakes once they are already on the griddle avoids all of it, because the juice stays inside the fruit until it is too late to matter.

Frozen berries are worse for this and better in January. They leak heavily on thawing, so they should go on frozen, straight from the freezer onto the batter, rather than being defrosted first.

The pancake itself rewards restraint. Lumps in the batter are correct, since mixing until smooth develops gluten and produces something closer to a rubber disc. Letting the batter rest for ten minutes lets the flour hydrate and the gluten relax. And the first pancake is always poor, which is a griddle-temperature problem rather than a personal failing.

Wild lowbush blueberries, common across the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, are smaller and more intensely flavored than cultivated highbush berries, and are worth seeking out frozen.

How to take part

• Scatter the berries onto the pancakes on the griddle, never into the bowl.
• Use frozen berries straight from the freezer without thawing.
• Stop mixing while the batter is still lumpy.
• Rest the batter ten minutes before cooking.
• Accept that the first one is a test pancake and eat it standing up.