Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Lemon Pancakes with Wildberry Sauce


It's Tuesday morning, which means a) I have to do grocery shopping this morning which I do NOT want to do, as it requires going out in the cold rain and, let's face it, not being lazy and b) 2 more shifts before my weekend! Am I excited? Sadly, no. I'm actually dreading tomorrow. I think that I've mentioned I volunteer, and sometimes my volunteering requires me to do an overnight shift. Ugh, the dreaded overnight. So what I get to look forward to is a full work day tomorrow (remember that I work in the afternoon/evening) and then I get to go almost straight into a full 8-hour overnight shift. I may just be a different person Thursday morning. Delusional and experiencing hallucinations? Very possible. Sigh... gotta do what you gotta do. Besides, I'm giving my time for a good cause... at least that's what I have to tell myself in situations like these.

So, I've mentioned before that pancakes aren't my strong suit. But I'm getting better at them. You'd think that for someone who is in the kitchen so much, making a simple pancake wouldn't be such a problem. I think the problem is a) my stove is really awful and b) I wasn't cooking them on the one side long enough before flipping them, which would result in an uncooked pancake (probably the more important). So what is necessary when using my piece of crap stove is patience because it has to stay on a low temperature so that it doesn't burn. See this post if you want to get a look at my ghetto oven/stove here. Then you can understand that I only have basically 4 temperature settings, which can make things tricky at times.

Long story short, I rocked these pancakes this morning. Not only did I cook them perfectly, but I made them from my own recipe! That's right, this is a Michelle original. No sourcing today. I took a look at maybe 4 different pancake recipes, got the basic proportions of ingredients needed, threw them together and hoped for the best! And it totally paid off, which is one of the best feelings ever! Cooking something like soup is different; it's easy to put ingredients together that you're pretty sure will meld together, but baking/pancake making is another story. You need the correct formula for things to work out. Anyways, I'd just like to say that I feel pretty awesome about my pancakes. They had a fantastic light and delicate lemon flavour that complimented the wildberry sauce perfectly. If you don't have a 4-berry mix like I had, this would work out well with just raspberries, blueberries or blackberries.


Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest
juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup vanilla or plain yogurt
1/2-3/4 cup milk, depending on thickness preference (I used 3/4)
1 egg
butter for pan

For Sauce:
1 cup 4-berry blend (thawed if from frozen)
1/8-1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon water, or juice from thawed berries
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Directions:
Combine berries and sugar in a small pot and heat on low. Allow the berries to simmer on low and reduce for about 20-25 minutes. If there appears to be a lot of liquid, as was my case because they were from frozen, drain a couple teaspoons and reserve aside. Once the berries start to break down at around the 20 minute mark, mix the cornstarch in with the reserved berry juice or water. Add to the berry reduction. Keep on heat for another few minutes, stirring frequently and being careful not to burn. Keep on very low heat or set aside.

For the pancakes, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a medium bowl and whisk together. Add in the lemon juice, yogurt and milk, stirring briefly. Add the egg and mix until combined. Add more milk if your preference is to have a thinner batter.

Heat a large pan on medium and allow approximately 1 teaspoon of butter to melt. Add the batter in 1/4 cup increments. Flip the pancakes when bubbles have appeared and the surface no longer looks "wet". If you are waiting to cook all before serving, heat your oven on low so that you can keep them warm in the meantime.

Serve with the warm wildberry sauce spooned over and enjoy!

Source: A Sweet Treats & Healthy Eats Original



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