Pancakes

Since we've moved in here we've started a new breakfast routine: on weekdays we have oatmeal (with steel-cut oats!) or toast or some other every-day easy thing, then on weekends we do something more time-intensive (and usually less healthy).

When Ryan and I got married we were given a cookbook that I haven't ever used much. I've often looked through it, eyeing the sumptuous-looking dishes contained therein. But, most of them are intended to make enough for two people and many of them have very expensive ingredients. So I always figured I'd use it when we were empty-nesters and had more money. When we decided to try to make exciting weekend breakfasts, I needed ideas and thought it'd be worth a look.

Turns out their pancake recipe is marvelous. And the berry sauce/syrup that goes along with it as well. Ryan actually prefers the berries to maple syrup because they're not as sweet.

Melted Berries:

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

1/4 cup sugar, plus more as needed

1 Tbsp. unsalted butter

pinch of kosher salt

fresh lemon juice as needed

Pancakes:

1 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup sour cream

1 tsp. baking soda

unsalted butter, melted

To make the berries you combine the berries, sugar, salt and butter in a small saucepan and cook until the juices flow (we use frozen, so we basically cook them until the berries are thawed.) I gave you the amount they call for sugar-wise, but we actually put in much, much less. Partly because the only frozen raspberries at our store are already sweetened and partly because that's just way too much sugar for our taste. We put in a couple of tablespoons, though I've also done it without any added sugar and it works fine that way as well. The lemon juice is optional.

For the pancakes: stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt (if I remember rightly, I use less salt than they call for) in a small bowl. Then whisk the eggs in a medium bowl and add the buttermilk (I use soured milk), sour cream, and baking soda. Add the flour mixture and mix it all up. Stir in 1 tablespoon of melted butter. To cook them, I melt a little butter on our griddle before spooning the batter on.

I usually double the recipe to make sure we have enough (depending on how much berry mixture people use you might or might not need to double that - one week we didn't need to, another we did). We usually have some leftover batter, which stores well in the fridge for one day, so we always make the leftover up either the next day or later the same day. Ryan likes them so much that he wanted me to be sure we shared the recipe with everyone. And, as you can see, Gareth loves them as well!