68 Days of Gourmet: Day 46
It’s been a great weekend! Full of beautiful weather, spending time with our adorable nieces, running (!!!) and pancakes. As my regular readers know, it’s kind of a tradition of ours to make a big Sunday breakfast. This morning Brandon chose pancakes and turkey bacon. We are usually waffle people and I will totally admit that I am not skilled at making pancakes. They’re just one of those foods I can’t seem to master – kind of sad!
I decide to test out two recipes from The Gourmet Cookbook in hopes that I would find a better, more successful pancake recipe. For Brandon, I chose Ruth’s Pancakes (from editor in chief Ruth Reichl) which were described as the pancake to choose if you needed to “pull out all the stops for an extremely special breakfast.” Given the amount of butter the recipe called for I would hope that you would only use this recipe for special occasions! For myself, I chose Whole Grain Pancakes with plans of covering them in almond butter and Greek yogurt.
The results were interesting. I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the way Ruth’s Pancakes cooked. I tried two different skillets (cast iron and non-stick) and couldn’t seem to get them to cook and brown evenly. Also, they were not as light and fluffy as I hoped. I was going to consider them a failure until I served them to Brandon and his first comment was that they tasted delicious – much better than they looked. I’m guessing that the problems I had with the cooking might have been related to the amount of butter in the batter. These were passable this morning but not the perfect recipe to solve my pancake cooking problems.
On the other hand, the Whole Grain Pancakes totally exceeded my expectations. They were fluffy, perfectly golden, cake-like and had a true whole grain flavor. I don’t know if I loved the addition of cornmeal to the batter because they definitely had a cornmeal taste to them but they were still great. I would definitely make them again. I topped mine with almond butter, plain Greek yogurt and maple syrup. Very filling and stayed with me through a big afternoon.
The weather was amazing here this weekend. Sunny and highs in the 60s. Made it through a 4.5 mile run yesterday with minimal leg pain and minimal post-run soreness. Maybe whatever muscle I pulled is finally healing. Saturday night we headed over to my in-laws house for homemade pizza and visiting time with our cute nieces. I can’t resist sharing this picture with you! Happiness!
I was going to take today off of running and go to my Sunday afternoon yoga class but Brandon suggested a trip out to the U.S. National Whitewater Center for trail running with Sullie and I couldn’t say no! He never wants to run with me so I wasn’t going to pass this opportunity up. We got in about 4 miles and had fun checking out the trails.
It’s been a great weekend! 🙂 Up early tomorrow to teach my 6 a.m. BodyPump class.
Ruth’s Pancakes
(Recipe source The Gourmet Cookbook)
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons plus 1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil, divided
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
4 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Directions:
Whisk together milk, eggs and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil in a medium bowl. Whisk in butter until combined. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Whisk in egg mixture until just combined. Do not over mix.
Heat 1/2 teaspoon of oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Pour 1/3-cup of batter into skillet, working in batches of three. Cook until bubbles have formed on top and popped, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook until undersides are golden brown, about 1 more minute.
Serve immediately with maple syrup or hold in a 200 degree oven until ready to serve.
Yield: 3-4 servings (8 pancakes)
Whole Grain Pancakes
(Recipe source The Gourmet Cookbook)
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, separated
1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus more for skillet if desired
1 1/2 cups whole milk (I used skim)
Directions:
Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together yolks, oil and milk. Add to flour mixture and stir until just combined. Let batter rest for 5 minutes, batter will thicken. (If batter is too thick to fall from spoon, add another tablespoon or 2 of milk.)
Beat egg whites with a handheld mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently whisk into batter until well combined.
Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Brush with vegetable oil (I skipped this because I was using nonstick). Pour about 1/4 cup batter into skillet and work in batches of about 3-4 small pancakes (or freestyle whatever size you want!). Cook pancakes until bubbles appear on surface and begin to pop and edges are set, about 2 minutes. Flip and continue cooking for another minute or 2, until underside is golden brown.
Serve immediately with maple syrup or hold in a 200 degree oven until ready to serve.
Yield: 4-5 servings
bakin' and eggs 