Recipes

I've been playing with all sorts of foods lately, looking at old recipes, cookbooks and trying to cook things I've never made before. I've been concentrating on the things that we've always bought pre-made or pre-mixed. Two of the items that have crossed our plates are pancakes and bleu cheese dressing. No, not at the same meal silly.

I have a few of those every recipe under the sun cookbooks that try to give you a broad range of recipes. You know the type of cookbooks I'm referring to; titles like The Joy of Cooking. (For some strange reason, I don't own that one.) I found my recipes for pancakes and bleu cheese dressing in two of these books; one first published in 1896 and the other in 1998 but recently updated. The old book is by a woman and the new book is by a man. I'm not going to tell you the names or authors of these books, but they are standards of many a cook's library.

Let's take a look at the recipes. Ladies first...

Griddlecakes

• 1/2 - 3/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons butter melted
• 1 egg
• 1 cup white flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Now for the Gentleman...

Basic Pancakes

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 or 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Very very similar. I've asked this question before and I've never gotten a satisfactory answer. Are both of these recipes original recipes? When I made my second batch of basic pancakes I added some vanilla and a little more sugar.

Have I created a new pancake recipe? Would it stand up to a publisher's scrutiny?