I have a confession to make, I’m not a morning person. As much as I love eating breakfast foods, rarely am I able to drag myself out of bed early enough to prepare them. Sundays are the one exception, it’s the only day of the week that I don’t have to worry about getting my son to school on time or be at work to teach a class. (more on that later)
I like to make pancakes on the weekend, it’s nice to take the time to make a meal that is home-made and it’s super simple to cook up any leftover batter and freeze them to eat during the rest of the week when um…let’s just say my time management skills could really use some work.
It would be even quicker if you pre-mix the ingredients the night before so that all you had to do was add the eggs and buttermilk when you want to cook up a batch. The only fussy thing about this recipe is that it calls for you to separate the egg and beat the egg white to firm peaks and then fold it into the batter at the last minute. You could skip this step and just mix the egg in whole but be you would be missing out on the lightest, fluffiest pancakes you’ll ever have the pleasure of tasting.
Blueberry Corn Cakes
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup all purpose flour
- 2/3 cup fine stone-ground cornmeal
- 2 tbs sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 large egg, separated
- 1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen works fine)
- 2 tbs vegetable oil
- softened unsalted butter and warm pure maple syrup for serving
Method:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- In a small bowl, whisk the buttermilk with the egg yolk.
- In another bowl or a stand mixer (this is the method I prefer, no matter how much I whisk it seems to take forever to get my egg whites to form peaks) beat the egg white until firm peaks form.
- Add the buttermilk mixture to the dry ingredients and stir gently with a wooden spoon until evenly moistened; there will still be some lumps.
- Fold in the beaten egg white and then the blueberries (if using frozen berries you might want to sprinkle the berries over the batter once you start cooking them to avoid turning your batter bright blue)
- Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a cast-iron skillet until hot, spoon 1/4 cup of the batter for each pancake. Cook over moderate heat until browned on the bottom and bubbles appear on the surface, 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook until browned on the second side, about 2 minutes longer.
- You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven while you continue with the remaining oil and batter.
- Serve the pancakes with butter, maple syrup and of course, don’t forget the bacon!
If you’d like to freeze any extra pancakes you might have, let them cool and wrap them in parchment paper to keep them from sticking. It’s nice to have something home-made during the week when you don’t have the time to make something from scratch.You can take them right out of the freezer,pop them in the microwave for about a minute and enjoy!
