Breakfast Uses it up
Corned Beef Hash With Crispy Potatoes and a Runny Egg
The canned stuff gave hash a bad name. Shredded corned beef fried crisp with diced potatoes and an egg on top is a different food entirely.
Next Door Chef nextdoorchef.com/recipes/sheet-pan-pancakes
Breakfast Kid approved
Sheet Pan Pancakes for a Crowd
One half sheet pan, one pour, 12 squares of fluffy buttermilk pancake while you sit down with your coffee.
Thirty-six pancakes on a griddle is forty minutes of standing there flipping while the first batch goes cold and someone asks where their pancakes are. One half sheet pan at 425°F is one pour, one bake, and everybody eats at the same time.
Two things people get wrong
The lumps are supposed to be there. Pancake batter wants the absolute minimum of stirring, because agitating wet flour builds gluten, and gluten makes the crumb chewy and rubbery instead of tender. Twelve strokes with a spatula, stop the moment the dry flour disappears, and let the batter look ugly.
Then walk away for 10 minutes. In that window the flour finishes absorbing the buttermilk, the gluten you did develop relaxes, and the baking powder starts throwing off carbon dioxide so the batter has lift already built in before it ever sees the oven. The lumps quietly dissolve while you pour coffee.
Spread it a third of an inch deep, scatter the berries on top so they do not sink, and give it 12 to 15 minutes. Cut it into 12 squares. Half of them go on plates and the other half go in the freezer for weekday toaster mornings, which is the actual reason to make the full pan.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 15 min
- Total
- 25 min
- Serves
- 12
- Level
- Easy
How to make it
-
Heat the oven, line the pan
Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425°F. Line the half sheet pan with parchment, then butter the parchment and the exposed inch of pan wall generously. A hot oven is doing half the work here, so give it the full 15 to 20 minutes to come up to temperature and let the walls of the oven absorb the heat too.
Chef's note. Cut the parchment so it climbs the long sides. The batter is loose enough to find any bare metal it can.
-
Whisk the dry, whisk the wet
In the large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt for a solid 20 seconds until it looks uniform. In a second bowl or a big measuring cup, whisk the buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla until no streaks of yolk remain. Getting the leavening evenly distributed while everything is still dry is the only chance you get, because you will barely stir once the two meet.
-
Combine badly, on purpose
Pour the wet into the dry and fold with a spatula about 12 strokes, stopping the second there are no dry pockets of flour left. The batter should be thick, ropy, and visibly lumpy. Those lumps are correct and you are not going to fix them. Count strokes out loud if you have to, because the instinct to keep stirring until it looks smooth is exactly what makes tough pancakes.
Chef's note. If you can pour it in a thin smooth stream like cream, you went too far. It should fall off the spatula in thick blobs.
-
Rest the batter 10 minutes
Set the bowl on the counter and leave it alone for 10 minutes while the oven finishes heating. You will see the surface puff slightly and go bubbly at the edges, and the lumps will soften and mostly disappear on their own. That is the flour drinking up liquid and the baking powder starting its first reaction. Do not stir it again after the rest or you knock the gas back out.
-
Spread it, then scatter
Scrape the batter onto the pan and push it to the corners with an offset spatula in as few passes as possible, aiming for an even layer about a third of an inch deep. Scatter berries or chocolate chips across the top now rather than stirring them in, so they stay suspended near the surface instead of sinking and making a wet stripe along the bottom.
-
Bake 12 to 15 minutes
Bake until the top is set and matte gold, the edges have pulled slightly away from the parchment, and the center springs back when you press it with a finger. Start checking at 12 minutes. A toothpick in the middle should come out with a few dry crumbs and no wet batter, and the whole slab should have risen to about three quarters of an inch.
Chef's note. If your oven runs hot on the bottom, slide a second empty sheet pan onto the rack below for the last 5 minutes.
-
Rest 5 minutes, cut 12 squares
Let it sit on the pan for 5 minutes so the crumb finishes setting and stops steaming, then cut 4 across by 3 down for 12 squares. Cutting straight out of the oven tears the middle and makes it look gummy even when it is cooked through. Serve with butter and warm syrup, or hand a square to a kid on the way out the door.
Why this works
Flour plus liquid plus agitation equals gluten, and gluten is the enemy of a tender pancake. Every stroke past the point where the flour is wet links more protein strands into an elastic network, which is fantastic in bread dough and awful here, producing pancakes that are rubbery, chewy, and streaked with tunnels. The lumps you leave behind are dry flour clumps that hydrate on their own during the 10 minute rest, no stirring required. That rest is doing three jobs at once: the starch and protein finish absorbing the buttermilk so the batter thickens, the gluten you did build relaxes so it stops fighting the rise, and the baking powder runs its first acid-base reaction at room temperature, seeding the batter with carbon dioxide bubbles that the heat will expand later. The 425°F oven is the last piece. High heat sets the top and edges fast, sealing in the steam and CO2 so the whole slab lifts at once instead of spreading, and because heat hits all 234 square inches simultaneously you get 12 servings in 15 minutes instead of standing at a griddle flipping four at a time for 40.
Swap what you do not have
- No buttermilk? Put 2 tbsp of lemon juice or white vinegar in a measuring cup, fill to 2.5 cups with regular milk, and let it sit 5 minutes. You need the acid to react with the baking soda.
- Whole wheat version: swap 1 cup of the all-purpose for whole wheat and add 2 tbsp more buttermilk, since the bran soaks up extra liquid.
- Out of eggs? Use 0.5 cup of plain yogurt or applesauce. The squares will be a little denser and slightly more cakey.
- Dairy-free: unsweetened almond or oat milk soured with 2 tbsp lemon juice, and melted coconut oil in place of the butter.
- Savory turn: cut the sugar to 1 tbsp, skip the vanilla, and scatter shredded cheddar, scallions, and crumbled bacon across the top.
Make ahead
Mix the dry ingredients up to a week ahead and keep them in a jar, then it is a 5 minute morning. You can also bake the whole pan the night before, cool it completely, and reheat squares in a 325°F oven for 8 minutes.
Leftovers and storage
Refrigerate squares in an airtight container up to 4 days, or freeze them in a single layer on a plate then bag them for 3 months. Reheat frozen squares straight in the toaster or in a 350°F oven for 10 minutes. The microwave works but goes soft and rubbery.
Per serving, estimated: 210 cal 7g protein 29g carbs 8g fat
Questions people ask
Why are my sheet pan pancakes gummy in the middle?
Either they came out early or the batter layer was too deep. The center needs to hit about 200°F to set, so bake until a toothpick shows dry crumbs and the middle springs back. Spreading the batter deeper than a third of an inch means the outside is done long before the middle catches up.
Can I use regular milk instead of buttermilk?
Yes, but sour it first with 2 tbsp of lemon juice or vinegar per 2.5 cups. The baking soda in this recipe needs an acid to react with, and plain milk leaves it unreacted, which gives you a flat, slightly soapy, metallic-tasting pan.
What size pan do I need?
A standard 18 by 13 inch half sheet pan with a rim. A quarter sheet is exactly half the area, so halve everything and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Do not use a flat cookie sheet with no rim, because the batter is pourable and will run off.
Can I double the recipe?
Do not double it onto one pan, use two pans on two racks and swap their positions halfway through. Doubling the depth on a single pan means the middle stays raw while the edges dry out, and the whole point is a shallow layer that heat can get through fast.
Recipe by Sammy Panice, the Next Door Chef. More at nextdoorchef.com
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