Can an empire be built on a pancake? So it would seem.
“I was a teacher, and so Pam was there on the weekdays, and I would be there at the nights and on the weekends. We did that for a couple of years,” Ms. Klingensmith said. Then she took a leave of absence from teaching to focus on giving the place more of a breakfast focus.
According to Ms. Klingensmith, Denise LeMar, who worked there part time as she earned a degree, told the owners straight up: “These are the worst pancakes I’ve ever had in my entire life.” And so Ms. Cohen set to work fixing that. “She is a food genius,“ Ms. Klingensmith said. ”Anything she touches gets better.”
The upgraded hotcakes were thinner than typical fluffy pancakes, but not quite as thin as a crepe, and they came out plate-sized with crispy edges. The diner ran a hotcake and coffee special for 99 cents, and the customers went wild for them, lining up outside to wait for an open seat.
“So we began this odyssey into becoming the best breakfast in town,” Ms. Klingensmith said.
Growing the Empire
“Both of us were raised by fathers that were very motivated,” Ms. Klingensmith said. “We were always scrambling to catch up to be number one in front of one of the chains. But we only had this one little restaurant in Squirrel Hill.” So they opened another location in the university district, putting Ms. Cohen at one diner and Ms. Klingensmith at the other.Over the next several years, they opened three more, including Lincoln’s P&G Diner—a takeover of the old-school lunch counter at the Cohen family’s pharmacy—and another in The Strip, which has become their most popular location. (And even after that, they opened yet another location in an old auto shop in Mount Lebanon—though in 2022, they closed the original Squirrel Hill location, so the total remains five.)
In all of these, you can order those amazing pancakes with crisp, lacy edges, also served rolled up with strawberries and sour cream like a crepe.
On April 22, 2008, Ms. Cohen made a batch under the supervision of the Secret Service: While taking a campaign break, then-Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, stopped for breakfast and became converts in The Strip diner while the media looked on. Following that, Ms. Cohen and Ms. Klingensmith were invited to make hotcakes for a breakfast for Gold Star mothers on Memorial Day in 2009, and other Washington events thereafter.
Word gets around. During the 2009 G20 summit in Pittsburgh, a diplomat from Japan came in search of the hotcakes he’d heard about.
Bringing a Piece of Pittsburgh Home
Like many others, I was blown away by the flavor, the chew, the crunch of the edges, and the option to roll and stuff them like crepes. I wanted to make these at home! But with their enormous success and popularity, it’s no surprise that the recipe is a closely kept secret. “There’s a process,” is all Ms. Klingensmith told me. And it takes a day or so? I asked, proddingly. “Yes.” Not much to go on. “I can’t possibly tell you the secret ingredients. I’d have to kill you,” she said, laughing. Standard warning for secrets. And so I was on my own ... almost.King Arthur Flour posted their best attempt to clone it online, and others followed. It called for an overnight cold rest with the yeast. Pretty close. Using buttermilk, baking powder, and baking soda instead of yeast, I tried an alternative to test against that cloned recipe, but it was too thick. Adding a bit of milk to thin it helped a bit, but the yeast seemed necessary for the flavor and the right touch of fluff that put it beyond crepe but shy of the thick-stack type pancake. Adding vanilla definitely seemed right. While I liked both recipes, the cooked results often overlapped, and even the same recipe differed greatly depending on the preparation. We’re chasing a unicorn here.
I recommend a cast-iron skillet. For the cooking, rather than using regular butter or just oil to grease the pan, I recommend clarified butter—or else ghee, which is clarified browned butter—which at 485 degrees F has a higher smoke point than butter (350 degrees F) yet still brings the butter flavor. The clarification process removes the solids that smoke sooner, as well as the extra water, so that you get crispy edges and browning faster. And the oil/butter combo in the pan needs to be reapplied for each pancake so that the batter is almost shallow-frying along the edges, which will brown up first.
These are not the thick, fluffy variety of pancakes, and should be thin enough to be rolled into a tube shape without breaking—yet not as thin as a crepe either. If they are thin and still break when rolled or flipped, then the batter is too thin. Be true to the size of the egg; small eggs won’t bind the batter enough. You can also try the old waffle trick of whisking only the beaten yolk into the batter first, then fluffing the whites separately and folding them into the rest. If they are too thick, you can thin the batter with more milk, but do so very sparingly—a little goes a long way.
Searching for Pamela Hotcakes
Makes 4 pancakes- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup lukewarm milk (warm enough to activate the yeast but not kill it)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 large egg
- 4 to 8 teaspoons clarified butter or ghee (1 to 2 teaspoons per pancake)
- 4 to 8 teaspoons high-smoke-point oil (canola, sunflower, or avocado oil) (1 to 2 teaspoons per pancake)
- Butter, maple syrup, blueberries, sliced strawberries, sour cream, etc. for serving
The next morning, let the batter come back to room temperature. When you’re ready to cook, beat the egg and gently mix it into the batter.
Fully pre-heat a nine-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat (about 375 degrees F). You can tell it’s ready by waving the back of your hand close over the pan (obviously, don’t touch the pan!). A flick of tiny water droplets will sizzle and dance immediately, but if they go instantly to steam, the pan is actually too hot. Now add the ghee and oil. The ghee will melt immediately. This will look like a lot of fat, but it is necessary for those signature low, crisp edges. Use a liquid measuring cup with a spout to scoop up about 1/3 cup batter. (Adjust the amount for the size of your pan; the batter should almost reach the edges.) Ideally, you should be able to pour the batter in the center and it will spread to the edges, but I personally find myself tilting the pan, crepe-style, so that gravity helps spread the batter before it firms up.
“Medium” can vary greatly on electric, induction, and gas stovetops, so you may need to play a bit to find that sweet spot that heats the fat enough to immediately start the edges frying but is not so hot that you burn the entire cake before being able to flip it. I tried this with a carbon steel pan as well, and while that works, it responds very quickly to heat changes, and I had to lower the temperature a bit by comparison with the cast-iron.
Cook for 2 to 3 minutes on medium, until bubbles appear and burst on the surface and the hotcake loses that wet sheen while also appearing golden brown on the pan-side. Flip the hotcake over and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes, until golden brown. Don’t let them cook until they are too stiff to roll—they should be flexible.
