Pancakes for Breakfast

It's been pancakes for breakfast four times this week. Even Kirk asked for them when he was off and he's not a big pancake lover. In fact he never wanted pancakes until I found this recipe. Well, not exactly this recipe because yeah, I changed it. We both decides it was good but needed tweaking just a bit and Kirk recommended a touch of almond flavoring. I can hear some of you moaning. No really, the recipe needed it. No, I do not change every recipe I try. Most of them yes, but not all of them. There is a perfectly wonderful lemon pound cake that I haven't changed a thing on and lest see um... what else. Oh I'm sure there are scads of ones I just can't thing of them right now. But if pancakes are just ho hum in your household give these a try and tell me what you think.

The grand kids requested these pancakes for four days in a row. Even over the gingerbread waffles. Luckily I made a full batch and froze the left overs. Heating just enough for breakfast the following two mornings. The microwave works great or reheat them in the oven but be sure and wrapped them in foil so they don't dry out.

Originally I just halved the recipe as a full one leaves just the two of us with way more pancakes than we need. Even a half batch is a bit too much for just two people. The leftovers I put on a cookie sheet to freeze and when frozen I put them in a ziplock bag for storage.

Now the almond flavor wasn't the only thing I ended up changing. To give the pancakes a lighter texture, I separated the egg and beat the egg white.

There's a trick to beating 1 or 2 egg whites. Use the whip beaters on your mixer and put the egg whites in a medium tall narrow cup. The whites can't get away from the blades of the mixer and you have whipped whites in just seconds. The whites are then folded in gently at the very end and just barely mixed.

One more change is in the wind for this recipe and it won't necessarily be a permanent one. It's substituting yogurt for the sour cream. I want to try and see what the difference in flavor and texture is but so you can try out this recipe I'd best give it to you.

Basic Pancakes

1 egg separated

1 cup flour

2 teaspoons sugar

pinch of salt

2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/4 cup sour cream (someday I'm going to make my own goat sour cream)

1 cup milk ( I of course use goat milk)

You could be all proper and put things in the bowl in order but my rule is to dump all the dry ingredients in and give them a swirl then add the egg yolk and milk and stir until the mixture is smooth. Then slowly fold in the egg white.

Double the recipe for a family.Now that we have grand kids at home I double the recipe so I can have leftovers to put in the freezer and skip the folding in the egg white. Instead I just throw the whole thing into the blender. It does essentially the same thing of adding air to the mixture as the egg whites did. Why I don't use the blender with a small batch is that it is just that, too small for my blender to properly mix. One great advantage of the blender is the spout makes a great container to pour pancake batter onto the sizzling hot electric skillet. ( set to 350 Fahrenheit)

Another tip for feeding lots of little ones is to use a small pizza cutter to cut the pancake into bite sized pieces, a few quick runs across and your done. The kids can even do it themselves.

We are blessed with real maple syrup and are using that but I have to confess I like the home-made fake stuff just about as good.

Maple Syrup

2 cups

1 cup water

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons maple flavoring

Boil until sugar is dissolved and add a 1 Tablespoon of corn syrup to keep the sugar from crystallizing. Of course you can just let it crystallize and show your kids what a natural square sugar crystal looks like. At fifty they still facinate me of course that's not too hard to do. The crystals will begin to form quite quickly and if it is just a science experiment you don't need to add flavoring but if you want breakfast syrup it would be boring without the maple flavoring. About a capful should do nicely. Okay, I'm not real accurate with the flavoring and my bottle is the industrial size so a capful is probably 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons.

Of course following breakfast the kids scuttle off to get dressed for the day. Our youngest grand daughter first insists that someone put the bedroom trash can over her head.

She then proceeds to warm up her vocal cords with squeals, grunts, and a general racket of noise while the enclosed area resonates her voice making it deeper and of course louder. We sit back and just giggle at her.

This Sunday post is for Monday as we will be gone most of that day. I hope you have a wonderful Monday. I try to check back in later in the day.