Whole Wheat Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes

As I mentioned in my previous post, my husband and I have resolved to eat lighter. Since giving up my Saturday morning pancakes is not an option, I whipped up this healthier version last weekend. They turned out fluffy and flavorful; I highly recommend this recipe, slightly modified from one on Cooking Light.

printable recipe

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes

yield: 12 pancakes (6 servings)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (optional, recommended if using blueberries)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 large egg white
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (optional)

Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups, level with a knife. Combine flours, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Combine buttermilk, oil, egg, and egg white, stirring with a whisk; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Heat a nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium heat. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto griddle. Sprinkle each pancake with a handful of blueberries, if using.

Turn pancakes over when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Serve with butter and syrup.

Linking to Fresh, Clean and Pure Friday.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Pancakes

Last night we put our children to bed at 8 as usual then enjoyed some popcorn and a movie downstairs. When we headed upstairs to bed, I noticed that Nathan's bedroom light was on. Opening the door, this is what we found:

I guess he had gotten up to play and fallen asleep on the floor. We had a good chuckle and put him back to bed, but I would not have been as amused if I had realized how many more times throughout the night he would be getting up. Our friends gave him a train table that their boys have outgrown and Nathan loves it so much that he apparently decided it was playtime at 3, 4, and 6 AM this morning. Needless to say, as the parent who is the lighter sleeper, it was a little bit of a rough night for me.

Fortunately, I have an amazing husband! In the morning, he got up with the kids and let me sleep in. Pure bliss. On top of that he made me these fantastic pancakes AND took notes on how he did it so I could post it for all of you. I hope you all enjoy these as much as I did!

There are three parts to this recipe:

1.  Cream Cheese Sauce

         4 oz Cream Cheese, softened

         1/4 C Milk

         2 T Sugar

2.  Blueberry Sauce

         1 C Blueberries, rinsed and drained

         1/4 C Sugar

         1/4 C Water

         2 t Corn Starch

3.  Blueberry Pancakes

         Use this Pancake Recipe

         1/2 C Blueberries

Cream Cheese Sauce

Mix the cream cheese and milk together in a mixer until combined.

Add the sugar and mix on high until combined.

Pour the sauce into a bowl and refrigerate until the pancakes are ready.

Blueberry Sauce

 Rinse and strain the blueberries.

Place the blueberries and sugar into a saucepan.

Smash the blueberries and mix with the sugar. Turn the burner on low and let sit for several minutes. This is an excellent time to start the pancakes.

Once the berries have warmed up add the water and bring to a boil.

Once the sauce is boiling add the cornstarch and whisk until slightly thickened.

Set the sauce aside until the pancakes are ready.

Blueberry Pancakes

Mix the pancake batter according to the recipe and pour the batter out onto a griddle. While the pancakes are cooking drop the blueberries into the batter. Mixing the berries with the batter can result in broken berries, this way keeps them whole.

Once the pancakes are done arrange on a plate and top with the cream cheese sauce.

Add the blueberry sauce and enjoy! These are very rich, I would say 1-2 pancakes per serving, the recipe yields 8 pancakes total.

Potato Pancakes

Last weekend, I made Pioneer Woman's Creamy Mashed Potatoes. They were amazing and, even though I halved the recipe, we still had plenty of leftovers. I didn't want them to go to waste, so the next morning we made Mashed Potato Pancakes, topped with ham, fried eggs, shredded cheddar cheese, and sour cream. It was a delicious breakfast, hearty and flavorful.

I pulled the potato pancake recipe off of mrbreakfast.com.

printable recipe

Potato Pancakes

serves 4

2 cups mashed potatoes
1 large egg, beaten lightly
6 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 Tbsp grated onion (I just used a tsp of dried minced onion)
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium bowl, whisk together the mashed potatoes and egg.

Add the flour and onion and mix all together well.

Spray a large skillet or griddle with non-stick cooking spray and turn heat to medium. Spoon batter onto the griddle and flatten. It's up to you how large you make them. I like to make four big pancakes.

Cook for several minutes per side, flipping once they are golden.

Top with a slice of ham, a fried egg, and some grated cheddar cheese, if desired.

French Breakfast Puffs

Today I made French Breakfast Puffs, from the Pioneer Woman Cookbook. We loved them!

The only problem with these is that they will forever go down in history (in my mind, anyway) as The Muffins Who Almost Made Me Question My Entire Identity As A Woman And A Baker. That's Evil Muffins, for short.

These are not to be confused with The Cookies Who Almost Made Me Question My Marriage. Someday I might blog about this story. It involves a high altitude mishap, a sweet and innocent husband who took baking tips from a well-meaning female co-worker, and a hormonal and completely irrational wife who apparently feels the need to be the only competent baker in her husband's life. (In case it's not clear, I'm the wife. I have issues.)

But back to the Evil Muffins. They look pretty innocent, right? Well, that's because you are looking at the second batch.

The first batch ended up as a crumbled mess at the bottom of my kitchen trash can. The first batch had me doubting my faith in The Pioneer Woman (almost sacrilegious, I know). The first batch is the one that made me question my identity and my love of baking. That first batch was the stuff nightmares are made of (I lead a very sheltered life).

You see, the tops of the first batch were completely sunken and they would not stay together. The worst part was that I had a whole cup (2 sticks) of butter already melted and waiting for the muffins to be rolled in, but the minute I attempted to remove them from the muffin tin, they disintegrated into a million crumbly pieces. The wasted butter was just sad...

I was cleaning up the mess, ready to curse the high-altitude, The Pioneer Woman, my Pampered Chef muffin pan, and the high price of butter these days when I saw it: the 1/2 cup measuring spoon covered in Butter-flavored Crisco.

I had used this scoop instead of the 1/3 cup by mistake, ending up with a cup of shortening in the batter instead of the 2/3 cup that the recipe called for!

The mystery solved, I gleefully made another batch (fortunately I had saved the butter). The second batch of batter happily turned into the beautiful, sweet creations that Pioneer Woman promised they would be. All was right with the world.

printable recipe 

French Breakfast Puffs

yield: 16 muffins

puffs

3 cups all-purpose flour (add 1/3 cup flour for high altitude)

3 tsp baking powder (2 3/4 tsp for high altitude)

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup shortening

2 eggs

1 cup milk

coating

1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In your mixing bowl, cream the sugar and shortening together.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Alternate adding one-third of the flour mixture and one-third of the milk to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them about 2/3 full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden. Remove from pan and set aside.

To make the coating, melt the butter in a bowl.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Dip the warm muffins in the butter, coating thoroughly.

Now roll them in the cinnamon-sugar.

Serve warm for breakfast, dessert, whenever! Apparently these are great to make ahead and freeze, then reheat in the microwave for a quick treat, which I am excited to try.

Monkey Bread

Have you ever had Monkey Bread before? If you haven't this will be a revelation to you. Monkey Bread (also called pull-apart bread) is kind of like caramel rolls, but in the form of little balls baked in a bundt pan.

Then when you eat it, you can cut it into slices, or pull off the little balls and eat it that way.

This stuff is dangerous, it's just begging to be picked at and before you know it, you'll have eaten the whole thing! But you will be so deliriously happy, it will be worth it.

I combined Monkey Bread recipes from The Pioneer Woman and Brown Eyed Baker for this recipe. If you want a faster result, substitute 3 cans biscuit dough for the dough recipe. Just coat in the cinnamon sugar, drop into the pan, coat with the caramel and bake!

printable recipe

Monkey Bread

Dough:

4 Tbsp butter, divided, 2 Tbsp softened and 2 Tbsp melted

1 cup milk, warm

1/3 cup water, warm

1/4 cup white sugar

2 1/4 tsp (1 package) yeast

3 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp salt

Coating:

1 cup white sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

Caramel:

2 sticks butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 170F then turn off. Butter the bundt pan with the 2 Tbsp softened butter and set aside. In a bowl, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar and yeast.

Mix flour and salt in a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook.

Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. This is not a great picture but hopefully it gives you an idea of what the dough will look like at this point.

After the dough comes together, increase speed medium and mix until dough is shiny and smooth, 6 to 7 minutes.

Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form smooth, round ball.

Coat large bowl with nonstick cooking spray. Place dough in bowl and turn to coat surface of dough with cooking spray. 

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in warm oven until doubled in size, about a half hour.

While the dough is rising, mix the white sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. When dough is ready, turn out onto a light floured surface and pat into an 8 inch square.

Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into 64 pieces, 8 rows of 8. Doesn't have to be precise, as you can tell by the picture!

Drop the balls into the bowl with the coating in it.

Cover and shake to coat (alternately you may use a large ziploc bag).

Place balls in the bundt pan, staggering them like bricks to build layers.

Cover pan and place in warm oven until risen 1 to 2 inches from the top of the pan, another 20-30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F, meanwhile heat the butter and brown sugar in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. 

Cook and stir for a few minutes until completely blended. 

Pour evenly over dough balls in bundt pan.

Bake in oven until top is deep brown and caramel is bubbling around the edges, about 35 minutes.

Allow to cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes, then remove to a plate or cooling rack.

Dig in!