Whether you spend the day curled up by a fire in Highlands, North Carolina, or combing the tideline for shark teeth in Vero Beach, Florida, a towering stack of warm, pillowy pancakes for breakfast makes it feel special. As the co-owner and pastry chef at Longoven in Richmond, Megan Fitzroy Phelan is known for earning culinary accolades—the restaurant, which first appeared as a pop-up and opened a brick-and-mortar in 2018, has appeared on dozens of national best-restaurant lists. But Fitzroy Phelan is also known locally for her holiday pancake mixes, which she makes in big batches of sifted dry ingredients, packaged in quart-sized Mason jars with printed instructions. “I gave them out one year after moving to Richmond,” she says, “and now I have a friend who tells me every summer, ‘I can’t wait for those pancakes,’ just to make sure I don’t forget.”
Fitzroy Phelan wanted to give her loved ones a breakfast that was as nourishing as it was delicious, so she developed a recipe that gets its wholesome heft from ground oats, bran, and whole wheat flour. “Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day,” she says, “and if it isn’t a pancake, it’s a waffle—something filling.” Her process couldn’t be simpler—just combine the dry ingredients and whisk well, and then package it all up. All the recipient has to do is add eggs and buttermilk. “Buttermilk adds a lot of acid,” she says. “The only leavener in the dry mix is baking soda, so you need another leavener to make it rise.” The final product makes rich, hearty pancakes that pair perfectly with warm maple or sorghum syrup and, of course, plenty of butter.
