Bonus pancake - Leftover Mashed Potato Pancakes

I mentioned in an earlier post that I bought a griddle for myself.  So as is the case with most new purchases, it has become my new favorite kitchen appliance.  I was feeling inspired so I decided to make some mashed potato pancakes using up the leftover spuds from our Thanksgiving dinner.  I've been feeling a little bored with the usual leftovers and heard about making pancakes out of mashed potatoes. So after some research, I came up with my own recipe.  They turned out pretty tasty, crispy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside. 

They're great on their own, as a side, or top them with your favorite holiday leftovers.  I topped mine with shredded turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce.  Jó étvágyat!

Ingredients:
-1 cup mashed potatoes (mine had chopped chives in it)
-1 egg
-1 Tbsp flour
-Salt and pepper to taste
-Cooking spray or canola oil for griddle/pan

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.
2. Heat the griddle or pan over medium-high heat.  coat with either cooking spray for oil.  Spoon the mixture on to a hot griddle or pan, cook for approx. 4 minutes, or until it turns golden brown on the bottom.  Flip and flatten the pancakes a little with a spatula.  Cook for another 4 minutes.

3. Top with any leftovers you may have such as shredded turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce.

Week 9 - Sweet Potato Pancakes

11/25/12 - Thanksgiving just passed and as usual, we had enough food to feed an entire hungry football team after an intense game.  And there were only 5 of us, one of which is a 5-month-old infant who cannot yet partake in the feast.  But even with the bountiful spread we had, I realized after dinner that we forgot to make sweet potatoes.

So this is my attempt to make up for the missing potato on Thanksgiving.  I adapted this recipe from the Food Network.  They're pretty tasty, just make sure the sweet potato is cooked very thoroughly so it's easy to puree and blend in to the batter.  These pancakes also aren't sweet at all, but the maple syrup makes up for it.  Or if you prefer, use more brown sugar, maybe about 1/4 cup worth in the batter.  Alternatively, mix some brown sugar with butter, spread on pancakes and top with maple syrup. Jó étvágyat!

 Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar (I recommend using more, such as 1/4 cup)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• Pinch nutmeg
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 4 teaspoons melted butter, plus more for greasing skillet
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 sweet potato, cooked until tender, peeled and pureed, approx. 1/2 cup
• Maple Syrup, for serving

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  
2. Mix the buttermilk with the egg whites.  In a separate bowl whisk together the melted butter and egg yolks.  
3. Combine the egg white mixture with the egg yolk mixture.  Mix this in to the dry ingredients. Serve with pecan butter and maple syrup.

Let them eat (pan)CAKE!

So up until now, I've been making pancakes on a tiny skillet.  Cooking pancakes on a tiny skillet stinks.  Here's why:
1. You can old make 3 at a time.
2. Trying to flip a pancake in a skillet with high, rounded sides is difficult
3. By the time you finish making pancakes, the first batch is cold.

So, I finally purchased my very own 22' Presto Griddle!

I went from this...

 To this...

*Angels singing*

Week 8 - S'Mores pancakes

11/17/12 - Now that we are well in to fall, I think more about heartier meals that really warm you up.  And sitting by a toasty fire does just that.  So that quickly led me to think about S'mores because let's be honest, no outdoor fire is complete without some toasted marshmallows.

I found a graham cracker pancake recipe, made a few tweaks, mixed in some chocolate chips, and sprinkled mini marshmallows on top.  I have had a bag of mini marshmallows (not the kind you get that are soft and chewy, but the tiny harder ones you find in instant cocoa powder packets) in my cupboard for what seems like forever.  Finally, a good way to use them up!

Hope you enjoy these, we sure did.  As seems to be the case each week, these are at the top of my husband's favorite pancake list!   Jó étvágyat!

Ingredients
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup graham crackers, crushed, plus more to sprinkle on top of the pancakes
1Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, separated
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
2Tbsp butter
3-4 handfuls of chocolate chips
1/2 cup marshmallows

1. Mix the flour, 3/4 cup crushed graham crackers, baking powder, and salt.
2. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whit with buttermilk.
3. In another separate bowl whisk together the egg yolk and butter.  Combine the egg white and egg yolk mixture, then pour over the dry ingredients.  Mix the batter just enough to bring it together. Don't try to work all the lumps out.  Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Lightly butter a hot griddle or pan and ladle the pancake batter onto the griddle.  Sprinkle mini marshmallows on top and gently press them in to the batter.  

5. When bubbles begin to set around the edges of the pancake and the griddle-side of the cake is golden, gently flip the pancakes. Continue to cook 2 to 3 minutes or until the pancake is set.  Serve with syrup.

 

Week 7 - Pancakes for our Veterans

11/11/12 - After last weekend's candy-filled (and calorie-stuffed) pancakes, I have been craving something on the lighter side.  So fruit came to mind and with it being Veteran's day, I whipped up some patriotic looking pancakes with cut up strawberries and blueberries.  I topped it off with the raspberry syrup I made a few weeks back and voila!  A lighter and healthier pancake to balance out the sugar rush we got from last week.

Now you could try to argue with me that pancakes aren't healthy, and you're pretty much right.  But don't forget all the antioxidants that are packed in blueberries!  And I'm sure strawberries have some great benefits to them too, I just can't remember what it is.  And while the syrup, which is full of sugar may not help slim you down, it is better than the store-bought pancake syrup that has some questionable ingredients.  Have you ever looked at the back of an Aunt Jemima bottle?  Cellulose gum?  Who wants gum topping their pancakes?  Or are there people who do?  Hmmm...potential pancake recipe?  :-)

So I used the same base for the pancakes as week 5, but mixed in some fruit.  God bless Alton Brown for this simple and delicious base.  Why mess with a good thing, right?  Although I won't stick to this recipe for the next 40-some weeks, I don't think it'll work so well with some of the recipes I have in mind.  But it's great to use as a base and mix in what you like.  This week I made sure to have buttermilk on hand because last week when I used plain milk the cakes were pretty flat.  Buttermilk really does make all the difference.  Jó étvágyat!

Ingredients:
6 oz.blueberries
10-12 large strawberries, sliced (set aside 1-2 sliced berries)

Directions:
1. Prepare pancake batter per instructions from Week 5.
2. Using a wooden spoon, mix the blueberries and strawberries into the batter.

3. Ladle the batter onto the griddle/pan.  When bubbles begin to set around the edges of the pancake, gently flip and continue to cook for 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Top with homemade raspberry syrup and freshly sliced berries.

Week 6 - Trick or Treat Pancakes

11/3/12 - For some reason every year for Halloween, I buy way more candy for trick or treaters than we need to.  I guess I don't want to be that house that runs out of candy and has to shut off its lights halfway through the night.

So every year I have the dilemma of having a lot of leftover sweets.  Usually, I just take it in to work to share with people, but this year I thought I'd do something different.  Since I'm on this 52 pancake mission, why not find a creative way to use some of the candy?  So here's my take on Halloween flavored pancakes.
I used M&Ms (afterall they're great in cookies), Whoppers (will add a nice surprising crunch), and Heath bars (just curious what this would be like).  My husband's favorite was the Heath bar pancake, you just need to make sure you don't over cook it or the candy will burn.  I was rather fond of the Whopper pancake because of the nice crunch it had.  The M&M pancake was tasty too, but the candy coating melted pretty quickly in the batter.  It did give the batter a nice swirl of color though.

Colorful swirls in the M&M pancake

I used the same pancake base as last week (see week 5's post) only I ran out of buttermilk and used fat free milk instead.  I think this was a mistake as the batter was runnier and the pancakes were nowhere near as fluffy as last week.  But I do recommend experimenting with various candy you may have left over and enjoy a little sugar high this weekend.  Jó étvágyat!

Candy overload!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup M&Ms
1/2 cup Whoppers
1/2 cup Heath bars

Directions:
1. Prepare pancake batter per instructions from Week 5.
2. Divide batter into 3 separate bowls.
3. Mix the M&Ms into one of the bowls of batter.
4. In a food processor pulse the whoppers until crumbs form.  Put the Whoppers in a bowl and set aside.
5. Pulse the Heath bars in a food processor and mix into one of the bowls of batter.
6. Heat a griddle or pan on medium heat and use butter to coat the griddle/pan.
7. Ladle M&M batter onto the griddle/pan.  When bubbles begin to set around the edges of the pancake, gently flip and continue to cook for 1 to 2 minutes being careful not to let the candy burn.  Do this until you run out of the M&M batter.
8. Ladle the plain pancake batter onto the griddle/pan and sprinkle the ground up Whoppers on top.  When bubbles set around the edges, gently flip and continue to cook for 1 to 2 minutes.  Again, be careful not to let the candy burn.  Repeat until you run out of the batter.
9. Ladle the Heath bar batter onto the griddle/pan.  When bubbles begin to set around the edges of the pancake, gently flip and continue to cook for 1 to 2 minutes being careful not to let the candy burn.

Week 5 - Perfectly Simple

10/27/12 - So far these past 4 weeks have been fun trying new pancake recipes, but I realize it's been a guessing game as to which recipes will turn out the best.  I even took a crack at personalizing and making up my own recipes.  But after last week's  peanut butter fiasco, I think it would be prudent to get a good plain pancake recipe which I can use as my base to build from.

So when it comes to understanding recipes and ingredients, and getting a great recipe, I like to turn to Alton Brown.  He's never let me down and I love his scientific approach to things.  Yeah, that's a little of my inner geek coming out.

First, I love the idea of having a bunch of pre-made, homemade mix on hand.  All I have to do in the morning is get the wet ingredients together and make the pancakes.  Although the directions for the wet ingredients is different.  Never have I seen instructions to separate the eggs, mix with another ingredient and then combine.  I think it may because eggs whites can be whisked in to a nice froth that will add to the fluffiness of the pancakes.

So the end result?  Amazing, light, fluffy pancakes.  I also love that slight tart flavor the buttermilk gives the pancakes.  This recipe is definitely a keeper and will likely be the base to many of my pancakes.  Alton, you never disappoint.  Thank you.  Jó étvágyat!

 Ingredients

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda (check expiration date first)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

Combine all of the ingredients in a lidded container. Shake to mix.

Use the mix within 3 months. (I don't think that will be a problem)

 

"INSTANT" PANCAKES:

• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 cups "Instant" Pancake Mix, recipe above
• 1 stick butter, for greasing the pan

Heat an electric griddle or frying pan to 350 degrees F. Heat oven to 200 degrees F.

Whisk together the egg whites and the buttermilk in a small bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the melted butter.
Combine the buttermilk mixture with the egg yolk mixture in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until thoroughly combined. Pour the liquid ingredients on top of the pancake mix. Using a whisk, mix the batter just enough to bring it together. Don't try to work all the lumps out.
Check to see that the griddle is hot by placing a few drops of water onto to the griddle. The griddle is ready if the water dances across the surface.
Lightly butter the griddle. Wipe off thoroughly with a paper towel. (No butter should be visible.)
Gently ladle the pancake batter onto the griddle.  When bubbles begin to set around the edges of the pancake and the griddle-side of the cake is golden, gently flip the pancakes. Continue to cook 2 to 3 minutes or until the pancake is set.
Serve immediately or remove to a towel-lined baking sheet and cover with a towel. Hold in a warm place for 20 to 30 minutes.