The BEST pancakes ever….in my opinion.

Tags

Breakfast, food, Greek yogurt, multi-grain, pancakes, yum

This summer when I was visiting my sister she made us delicious pancakes made with yogurt.  They were really fluffy and good.  I have a standard multi-grain pancake recipe I use so I thought….why not add yogurt and see how they turn out?  They were so wonderful that I have to share.  The basic recipe can be modified with any grains you like.  I don’t always make them the same way.  I’ve added cooked quinoa, cooked rice, oatmeal etc.  The version I like lately which is below has rice flour which makes them a bit crispier than usual and sesame seeds.  Please try these and definitely try changing up the combination of grains.

Oh so good.

Basic recipe

• 3/4 c whole wheat flour (I usually keep this as the base but you do whatever you like)
• 1/4 c corn meal
• 1/4 c oatmeal
• 1/4 c mix of rice flour & ground flax seed
• 1 Tb Sesame seeds
• 1 – 3 Tb sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• salt
• 2 eggs
• 3 Tb melted butter or oil (coconut oil is tasty)
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1 tsp vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients together (just remember your grains should equal 1 1/2 cup total). Mix the wet ingredients together.  Add the wet into the dry until combined.  The mixture gets very thick, add milk if needed but the batter should be much thicker than regular pancake batter.   Heat a pan or griddle to a slightly lower temperature than you use for regular pancakes.  Cook until one side is golden, flip and cook until golden.  The batter may still be wet when you flip the first time but it will be ok.

Strictly for my crepes!

Tags

Breakfast, crepes, dessert, dinner, food, savory, snack, sourdough, sweet, wild yeast, yum

The wild yeast starter obsession continues …I recently discovered you can make crepes with the discarded starter!  Crepes….I adore crepes….filled with pretty much anything I can think of. Nutella being the most obvious and the one I decided not to use this time around.  Mostly because my jar of Nutella is almost empty and I’m too lazy to go to the store on a Saturday morning!

Lazy dogs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this actually starts the night before.  Take 3/4 cup of the sourdough starter (before you refresh it) add one cup warm water and 1 1/4 c flour. Mix together, cover and let sit for 8-12 hours.  It will be bubbly.

 

 

In the morning, beat 2 eggs (at room temp) with 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil and then add to the batter.  Mix together 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1 Tb sugar. Sprinkle onto the batter, stir, cover and let sit for at least 15 mins. Original recipe here

To make the crepes you can use a variety of pans, it’s really personal preference. I know some people say you must use a crepe pan but I’ve used many different types of pans and found they all work once you find the right temperature for each one.  I currently use a cast iron skillet for pretty much everything, so that is what I used for this!  I heated it up on med until drops of water sprinkled on it sizzled and evaporated. I then wiped it with a paper towel with some veg oil on it and turned it down one notch.

thin layer of batter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The batter has to be thin enough to spread on the bottom of the pan fairly easily. If it’s too thick just add a little bit of warm water until you get the right consistency.  I pour some batter into the pan and then pick it up and swirl it around to coat the bottom.  Flip it over once the bottom is light brown, it cooks very quickly.

  

The thing I love about crepes is that you can fill them with pretty much anything! Sweet or savory.  We had shrimp salad, made with scallions, fennel seed and celery seed, ham & cheese, ham & mango, plain mango and Meyer lemon with powdered sugar (my favorite).  You can also store left over crepes (unfilled) in the refrigerator and heat them up in the microwave and then fill….but….I had no leftovers! We ate them all!!!!! 

Some choices.

 

I’ve heard of some amazing fillings, like:  Roasted garlic with brie; Peaches or apples with vanilla ice cream,; poached pears with chocolate syrup; blueberries & cream; asparagus, ham & gruyere; curry chicken or curried vegetables; hummus, sweet potato and spinach; potato,eggs, cheddar cheese & roasted peppers. It’s really limited only by your imagination.  You can also add herbs, mustard, cinnamon or vanilla etc to the batter itself!

shrimp filled crepe.

 

 I would love to hear what you use to fill a crepe! 

 

 

 

Apfelpfannkuchen

Tags

Apples, Breakfast, Fall, german, pancakes, sweet, yum

I came across a recipe for the Apfepfannkuchen which is a German Apple pancake type thing.  But I didn’t really trust the site where I came across it because the last thing i made from her site was not very good and because she had baking powder in the batter and wanted it to sit for up to an hour.  Now if you know anything about baking and baking powder, you have to use it pretty quickly otherwise the leavening effect of the baking powder goes away.  So I researched some more. Ugg…. Every recipe was a little different.  I decided to just combine a few things and use my own knowledge. To explain.  My mom gave me a recipe for a Bismark.  which is an AMAZING souffle type pancake.  Made in an iron skillet in the oven.  That’s what this apple thing basically was.  So this is what I did and it turned out pretty well.

Put about 3-4 Tb of butter in a hot skillet on the stovetop, med heat.  Slice apples thinly and place them in the skillet.  Add about 1/3 c of brown sugar, sprinkle cinnamon, allspice, pepper & salt over and let it cook until apples are soft.  Preheat oven to 475. Meanwhile whisk together 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk and two eggs.  Pour the batter over the apple mixture and put in the oven.  Cook for 12 minutes.  The batter will puff up and it will get cripsy on the edges and sugary on the bottom!

The start.

Add the batter and pop in the oven

It iwll look like this!

Et viola! Eat it up!