Buckwheat Pancakes with Cardamom Syrup

If you come to my house on a Saturday morning, chances are good you'll have a good breakfast. I'm not sure when the tradition started, but it's been going on for a while. I love getting up before everyone else, turning the radio on, and putting together something sweet.

This Saturday was buckwheat pancakes with roasted cherries (sliced peaches in the original recipe) and cardamom cream syrup. This meant three components to put together; then again, I knew it would be a good while before anyone else would be ready for breakfast.

So I started by pitting a bunch of cherries (they're really great right now) and putting them in a baking dish with a bit of vanilla sugar and butter and letting them roast in a 375 oven for about 20 minutes. Then I boiled some raw (demerara) sugar with water and cardamom, added some cream, and boiled that down a bit.

By the time the syrup was done, so were the cherries. Both took some time but were very easy to put together. By the way, apricots are also really delicious cooked like the cherries.

Time for the pancakes: three kinds of flour plus baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

As Melissa suggested, I used the opportunity to clear out my fridge a bit: I had the remnants of some buttermilk and sour cream, and I topped that up with yogurt. Two cups of fermented milk products seemed like a lot, but my batter was actually a bit stiff, and so I added a bit more yogurt.

In the interests of saving a dish to wash, I just dumped in the egg, butter, honey, and buttermilk/yogurt and whisked it all together. Tip: if your honey is crystallized (as mine always seems to be), melt it with the butter.

On the griddle they went. I spooned these on a bit too generously and they had trouble getting done on the inside. I suggest smallish spoonfuls and flattening them a bit.

Look at how nicely they brown and puff up. I was a bit concerned because there was just one egg in the batter, but the buttermilk/baking soda combo seemed to be plenty to make these light and fluffy.

So here's the finished product with all three components. I loved the combination of fluffy pancakes and cardamom with the juicy cherries. Claire was feeling conservative and just had her pancakes with the classic maple syrup, and she really liked that. I'm pretty sure Sami tried (and liked) them both ways. In any case, this is a very good pancake recipe: a mostly whole-grain pancake that doesn't taste like one. I would happily eat them again on another Saturday.

Light and Fluffy Pancakes

Saturday breakfast before hitting the road! I adapted this from a recipe in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian based on the fact that I had three rather than four eggs and I had buttermilk in the fridge. Delicious--they vanished quickly.

Light and Fluffy Pancakes

1-1/2 c. flour (1/2 c. can be whole wheat)

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

1 T. sugar

3 eggs, separated

1/2 t. vanilla

1-1/2 c. buttermilk

Heat up your griddle before you start mixing--grease it if necessary. Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl, preferably one with a spout. Beat the egg whites until they hold a stiff peak. Add the egg yolks, vanilla, and buttermilk to the dry ingredients and mix until fairly well incorporated--lumps are OK. Fold in the egg whites. Spoon or pour out the batter onto the hot griddle. This should make about 20 pancakes.

Carrot-Walnut Muffins

This recipe comes from a German baking book I have, Backen Macht Freude (I guess that could be roughly translated as the Joy of Baking). It's from the German equivalent of Betty Crocker, Dr. Oetker. It says a lot about German culture that the baking icon has to be a doctor. Who's going to trust a recipe from just some person without a title?

Anyway, these are really good muffins. They are from the "Oh, a few carrots will definitely balance out all this butter" school of thought, so they're tender and not too dense.

If you have a scale that does grams, it might be in order here. My calculations may be off.

Carrot-Walnut Muffins

300 g./10.6 oz. (2 cups + 1 T.) flour--I used about 1/3 whole wheat

2 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

1 t. ginger

150 g./5.3 oz. (10 T.) melted butter or salad oil

200 g./7 oz. (14 T.) sour cream

2 eggs

2 T. lemon juice (about 1/2 a large lemon)

100 g./3.5 oz. carrot (1 large carrot), peeled and grated

100 g./3.5 oz. (about 1 c.) walnuts, chopped fine

Heat the oven to 350 and butter 12 large muffin cups (I actually got 14 muffins). In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and ginger. Dump in the butter, sour cream, eggs, lemon juice, carrots, and walnuts, and mix well but not too well--some lumps are OK. Scoop into the prepared muffin pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Tell yourself that a doctor wrote this recipe, so it must be healthy.

Jam-Filled Doughnuts

Maybe you need more excitement in your Saturday morning. Maybe you need a vat of hot oil and the worry that the jelly in the doughnuts is going to ooze out into the oil. Maybe you need your house to smell like Krispy Kreme. Or maybe you like really, really good doughnuts and don't mind a bit of a challenge. I thought these were totally worth it--but I won't be making doughnuts again for a while.

This recipe is adapted from a Kosher Hanukkah doughnut recipe from the December 2002 Bon Appétit. I only made half this recipe, and it was plenty for the four of us.

Jam-Filled Doughnuts

2-1/2 c. (7.5 oz.) flour (part whole-wheat is OK if you want to delude yourself)

5 T. (2.2 oz.) sugar

2 envelopes rapid-rise yeast

Grated zest of one lemon

1 t. salt

1/4 t. ginger

3/4 c. (6 oz.) milk

4 T. (2 oz.) butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs

1-1/2 t. vanilla

Jam of your choice (I used raspberry)

6-8 cups of frying oil (I used peanut)

Powdered sugar

I highly recommend making the doughnuts the night before.

In a large bowl (you can use a mixer with a dough hook or do this by hand), whisk together the flour, sugar, yeast, lemon rind, salt, and ginger. Beat in the milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla until a soft dough forms; knead on a floured board until smooth and elastic. Return to the bowl, cover with a towel, put in a warm place, and let rise about 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

Roll out on a floured board to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out 2-inch circles with a cookie/biscuit cutter. Go for an even number of circles. Put a scant half teaspoon of jam on half of the circles and cover them with the remaining circles. Press on the edges to seal and recut with the cookie cutter to seal the edges a bit more. Arrange the doughnuts on a cookie sheet, cover with plastic, and refrigerate until you're ready to fry.

When you're ready to fry, remove the doughnuts from the fridge and heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat to 325. It will take at least 10 minutes for your oil to heat up to that temperature. In the meantime, line a baking sheet with a brown paper bag and put a rack over that. Also, check the doughnuts to make sure they're sealed; crimp the edges of any that have become unsealed. Once the oil is finally heated, cook the doughnuts about 2 minutes per side; fish out with a slotted spoon and put on the prepared rack. Sprinkle both sides with powdered sugar and call the troops to eat them while they're hot!

Pear-Walnut Muffins

Saturday breakfast! A very fall-appropriate choice. These came together easily, taste good, and are on the semi-healthy side, especially if you boost the whole-wheat flour a bit (I did about 1 c. whole wheat and 1 c. white). This recipe is one I typed up from the January 27, 1997 issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which shows I've been obsessive about cooking a good long while...

Pear Muffins

2/3 c. brown sugar 1-1/4 c. finely chopped pear

1-1/2 c. flour 1/3 c. chopped toasted walnuts

1/2 c. whole wheat flour 3/4 c. milk

1 T. baking powder 2 T. oil

1/2 t. salt 1 egg

1/2 t. cinnamon 1 T. sugar (raw sugar, or cinnamon sugar, would be good here)

Heat oven to 400. Combine sugar, flours, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl; stir well. Add pear and walnuts; toss gently to coat. Make a well in center of mixture. Combine milk, oil, and egg; stir well. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Divide batter evenly among 12 muffin cups sprayed with Pam; sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove muffins from pans immediately; let cool on a wire rack. Makes 1 dozen.