Pig shaped Pancakes with Cranberry Pears

This morning I took a quick break from some serious knitting and made myself some pancakes. When I went into the cupboard to get a batter bowl I saw a pig cookie cutter and thought it would be fun to make pig shaped pancakes. I put some milk and an egg in the bowl and whisked them together. I added some flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder and mixed it again. I melted some butter in a little saucepan and added that to the batter.

I peeled and sliced several small pears and tossed them into the still slightly buttery saucepan and let them stew in their juices while I cooked the pancakes. After several attempts at using the cookie cutter I ended up with one recognizably pig shaped pancake. I came to the conclusion that I need to try it again with a larger cutter. When the pears were tender and I had used almost all of the batter, I added some fresh cranberries to the pears and cooked the fruit until all of the cranberries had popped. I added a big pinch of sugar and poured them on top of my stack of pancakes, topped it with a little whipped cream.

Pancakes:

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp sugar

2-3 Tbsp butter, melted

* lemon zest

Mix together the wet ingredients. Add the dry ingredients and mix again. (It’s okay to have a few small lumps in the batter, you don’t want to over mix it.) * Lemon zest is a great addition if you have it on hand, you can also use orange zest.

I always use my cast iron griddle pan to make pancakes. My stove is pretty hot and the pan holds the heat really well so I have found that I can set the burner quite low (3) and the pancakes come out very well.

Pears:

5 medium-sized pears, peeled, cored, sliced

1/2 – 1 cup fresh cranberries

small pat of butter

sugar to taste

Melt the butter in a pan and add the pears. Let them cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until they are tender. Add the cranberries and continue cooking until they all pop. Add sugar to taste. Let sugar dissolve, stirring frequently. Serve.

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cornmeal crepes

My friend and I have been doing a lot of crepe making recently. Our latest trial was a batch of cornmeal orange-butter crepes from The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern. I had to work a mini shift early in the morning so I made the batter the night before and let it rest in the fridge until we were ready for it. The recipe was for a orange-butter sauce with a little rum, we also made a savory filling.

Vanessa picked up some cremini mushrooms, leeks, and rosemary on her way over. We sauteed the veggies and seasoned them with some salt, lots of black pepper. To finish them off, we added a bit of cream.

We tend to prepare our crepes in phases, giving us time to digest the previous course of crepes…

The orange-butter sauce was very simple to make, we just melted some butter in a pan with orange juice and zest, added a pinch of nutmeg, some sugar and a splash of rum. The sauce thickened up a little, perfect to lay the crepes in and absorb the juicy goodness…

I gently folded the crepes in quarters as I lifted them out of the pan allowing some of the excess sauce to run off. We served them with some stewed wild black raspberries that a friend had picked and frozen last summer…

I can’t wait to try more variations of these glistening cornmeal crepes! And when I do, I will definitely report on them too!

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pancakes make the world go-round

Well, maybe not Kansas but the rest of the world…

This morning I woke up and had a hankering for pancakes. I made myself a cup of tea and got to work. I recently adopted a recipe, from a friend, that includes a bit of lemon zest and are proving to be perfect every time.

I love the additional zing of the lemon zest adds. Many people slather their pancakes with butter and syrup but I prefer palate of homemade jam to dip each bite in… this morning I had raspberry, plum, and apricot.

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