Tastebud Chicago

For a long time, Clarks on Belmont was our favorite place to get breakfast. When we moved to Lincoln Square, it just wasn’t as convenient, so our visits dropped off. Our favorite thing to get there were the pancakes. It took us a while to figure out why they tasted so much better than other places. After some subtle investigation (we asked the waitress) we found out they used malt in their batter.

For years, we occasionally tried to recreate the Clarks pancakes. We added malted milk, malt syrup, malt extract, anything that had the word “malt” in it. Malt is a tricky devil. The wikipedia article on malt explains, “Malting is a process applied to cereal grains, in which the grains are made to germinate and then are quickly dried before the plant develops.” Malt is used in lots of things: beer, whiskey, movie theater candy, and pancakes.

After countless experiments, we pretty much gave up. Then, out of the blue, we ran across Carbon’s Golden Malted Pancake Flour in the speciality food section of the Costplus World Market in Evanston. Giddy, we whipped up a few batches. All of them turned out great.

Mystery solved. If you want malted pancakes, try out the flour that specifically says “malted pancake flour.” Duh. We’re still going to try and make the flour for ourselves, as we’re ornery like that, but for now, we have a good go-to for pancake-Saturdays.