Cooking with Ai

Heavenly  Blueberry Pancakes

w/ Homemade Whip Cream

Yes, you heard me right.  Made these this morning and they tasted every bit as heavenly as they look!   I got a really nice tight hug from Liem after he was done eating.  It made me want to whip up another batter just for that!

Ingredients

2 Cups Fresh Blueberries (reserve another 1/2 cup for later on while you are pouring batter)

2 Cups Flour

4 Eggs (separate yolks from whites)  

1 1/2 Cup Milk

1 TBSP Baking Soda

1 TBSP Sugar

1 tsp Salt

1 TBSP Vanilla Extract

(makes 8 pancakes)

STEP 1:  Beat the egg yolks, vanilla, and milk together in a large mixing bowl.  Sift flour, baking soda, sugar and salt into the same bowl.  Take a spatula and fold everything together.  DO NOT get too spatula happy and over mix.  You want to do the bare minimum on this.  Then fold in the blueberries, once again, use as few strokes as possible.

STEP 2:  Using a hand blender, whip egg whites until they stiffen up.  I stop right before they form hard peaks.  It should be triple the volume.  Carefully fold this into your batter until well blended (as few strokes as possible).  This will provide the added moisture and structure to your pancakes.

STEP 3:  Pour 1 cup of batter on griddle at medium heat or 325 degrees for an electric griddle.  It's a little different from cooking plain pancakes.  Don't wait until you see bubbles all over to flip. It will be too brown on the bottom.  Pour, wait until it sets, then take your spatula and ease up under it, and then flip.  The first flip will tell you whether you should continue flipping the others or wait a few seconds. Be fast with the flipping, remember, they are heavy with blueberries!

If you see missing spots when you pour the batter, use the reserve berries to place them where needed.  Or you can use your fingers to reposition some that haven't set in. 

Whip Cream:

Whip 1 cup of heavy whipping cream with whisk attachment until stiff.  It takes these pancakes up to another dimension, trust me.  After you eat blueberry pancakes like this, it's just not the same without it. It's definitely worth the extra minute! You can also add 1/4 cup of powdered sugar if you want your cream to be sweeter.

NOTES:

•  Cut your time in half by using an extra wide electric griddle.  Here's the one I use:  
  

Heats quickly:  Reaches temperature within 1-2 mins.

Easy clean-up:  When finished, just wipe a few times with a soapy dish cloth

50% Larger:  I cook 5 super large pancakes in one batch.  Two batches only takes 5-6 minutes.  You can also throw bacon on while you're making your pancakes and forget about washing any pans when you're done. (Try microwaving bacon for 1-2 minutes then throwing it on griddle for time saver and easy cleanup.)