Sour Cream Banana Pancakes

Summertime makes me feel loved. We have wonderful friends who live all over the world and they come visit us! When we can we can, we visit them too. A few weeks ago, we went to the Oregon coast to visit some friends who came in from the east coast. A whole bunch of us, some assorted kiddos, and our dog had a wonderful time sharing a beach house, playing games, and eating and eating. In the morning, we made sour cream banana pancakes that everyone gobbled down. They are currently my guests-in-the-house go to breakfast. Delicious, sweet, vanillay and oh so good!

Sour Cream Banana Pancakes - from Ina Garten
Serves 4
Preheat oven to 250 to store cooked batches of pancakes

1 1/2 cups of flour
3 tablespoons of sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon milk (I used whole milk)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 ripe bananas chopped or mashed

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Set aside. In a larger bowl, mix together sour cream, milk, eggs, vanilla and chopped or mashed bananas. 

Find an adorable helper, and let them stir. Mix everything together in the larger bowl and fold until just combined.

In a large cast iron skillet with a bit of butter, cook pancakes in batches. I like to store cooked pancakes on a cookie sheet in a low set oven. 

We like these with a variety of toppings... some faves include butter and sugar, or peanut butter (obviously - this crowd lives on peanut butter) or the never-fail maple syrup. I'm not really a fan of maple syrup, but a dear friend of mine made vanilla infused sugar and with some butter, that's my fave!

I feel like it's been the summer of pancakes, but boy am I glad!!

Enjoy!

 

Spiced Apple Pancakes

Growing up, my mom always made sautéed apples for breakfast.  They reminded me of the apples from Cracker Barrel, but WAY better.  I absolutely loved them and since they were cooked in butter and sugar, I didn’t get them as often as I would have liked (thanks mom).  Although not everything about growing up is awesome, the ability to cook my own breakfast apples is definitely a treat…that I intend to devour.

Yes, I’ve been talking about breakfast apples, but this recipe is really for my Spiced Apple Pancakes.  So here’s a little two-in-one.  I roughly chop my breakfast apples and add them to the batter.  Then I top the pancakes with more apples.  These pancakes are almost sinful.  Seriously!  Try just the apples or try the pancakes but either way, you won’t be disappointed.  Actually, hubby recommended the apples for apple pie…hmmm………

Spiced Apple Pancakes

Apples:

2 apples, thinly sliced (I prefer Gala)

3 tbsp butter or margarine

1/8 c brown sugar

pinch of salt

¼ tsp vanilla

¼ tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp allspice

Batter:

1 egg

1c all-purpose flour

¾ c milk

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp sugar

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

cooking spray

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add apples and cook until they begin to caramelize.  Mix in brown sugar, salt, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.  Cook until apples are completely softened.  Remove from heat.  Set aside.

Beat egg with a whisk until fluffy.  Beat in remaining batter ingredients until smooth.  Add a little milk if necessary.

Take half of cooked apples, chop them, and then stir into the pancake batter.  Heat a large skillet or griddle to medium heat.  Spray generously with cooking spray.  Add dollops of batter to pan.  Cook on one side until bubbles start to form on top.  Flip and finish cooking on the other side.  Top pancakes with leftover apples.

Strawberry Cheesecake Pancakes

This is another recipe that comes from my chef-friend and family. Oh man, oh man, I am a lucky girl to know these people! They make our world better. Anyway, these are absolutely my favorite pancakes. Ever. They really do taste like bites of cheesecake and the macerated strawberries and the little dusting of powdered sugar we put on top of them add all the sweetness we ever want. We never use syrup on these, they just don't need it. This recipe doesn't make a huge batch, but it's plenty for the two of us and our tiny gentleman. It's fine for four people with a side of bacon or some eggs. I hope all weekends include cheesecake pancakes.

Strawberry Cheesecake Pancakes

Serves 2 a hearty meal, serves 4 a side of pancakes

For the Strawberries

2 cups hulled and sliced strawberries

1 tablespoon sugar

juice of 1 lemon

For the Pancakes

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup ricotta (or cottage cheese. I love ricotta.)

The first step is to prep the strawberries so they have time to rest and macerate. In a large bowl zest the lemon and set aside (it's far easier to zest a lemon before it's juiced then try to manhandle it afterwards.) In a small bowl, juice the lemon and add 1 tablespoon of sugar. Slice strawberries and stir into the sweetened lemon juice and set aside.

This weekend I had a tiny helper who LOVES cooking with me!! So sweet and such a good strawberry washer.  :)

In a large bowl, whisk dry ingredients - flour, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl with the zest, whisk together all of the wet ingredients - milk, sugar, egg, melted butter, vanilla, and ricotta. 

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined.

I love my cast iron pans - I have a griddle pan and a skillet - I use them for EVERYTHING! In a lightly buttered pan cook pancakes until bubbles form on the top and then flip and cook until browned on both sides. 

I keep pancakes warm in the toaster oven while I cook in batches or in a 200 degree oven if I'm doubling this recipe. 

By the way, this recipe doubles really well and the batter keeps for 2 days in the fridge (or in a cooler if you're camping and in charge of breakfast on day 2.)

A few other strawberry or cheesecake recipes...

Lemon Cheesecake Tart

Roasted Strawberry Shortcakes

Strawberry Mint Lemonade

Cheesecakes in Jam Jars

Things made this time last year...

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

 

Haricot Verts with Tomatoes

Whole Wheat Yogurt Pancakes... with Fruit

Makin' banana pancakes, pretend like it's the weekend now!

I pretty much can't make pancakes without singing Jack Johnson. It's a good thing I like Jack Johnson. And pancakes. And weekends. I like it all. Here are some half whole wheat flour, half all-purpose flour pancakes with a lot of yogurt folded in - some are made with blueberries, and some are made with bananas - it's all the same batter, just some berries folded into half of it, and bananas poked into the other half while the pancakes cooked on the griddle. 

Whole Wheat Yogurt Pancakes

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup yogurt - I use Nancy's organic yogurt, a pretty thick plain yogurt. Greek yogurt also works

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter

3/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

Add-Ins

1 cup blueberries - I use frozen wild berries. They are tiny and fold in really well. If you use frozen berries, your batter will be sort of cold. As I heat up the griddle, I keep it on rather low heat as I like to cook these a little lower and slower than the pancakes without berries.

Bananas - I don't fold these in, I put the batter on the griddle and pike several banana slices into the batter, then flip and cook the banana side. The bananas get all warm and gooey and awesome.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl. Whisk together yogurt, sugar, butter, eggs, milk and vanilla. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Measure out half the batter and add blueberries. Cook pancakes on a hot griddle until little bubbles burst, flip and finish cooking. Transfer batches to a preheated oven to keep warm while you finish cooking the rest of the batter.

We like peanut butter on our banana pancakes. Peanut butter and maple syrup. Or honey. Or just maple syrup. Or cut up strawberries. Or nothing at all. Pancakes are good.