Well stacked...

Kids love pancakes. The problem is, if you are like me at 6:30 am, you are too sleepy to make pancakes from scratch. That is what happened this morning.

Last night I looked up some recipes for ricotta pancakes. I had quite a bit of ricotta left over from when I made lasagna so this would help get rid of it before it went bad. Now all of these recipes required you to separate the eggs and whip the whites until frothy. Those were two extra steps! Okay fine, I still wanted to make them. Fast forward to 7am...it was not going to happen. Sorry kids!

In the end I decided to make the ricotta pancakes for lunch. Hey, I had sandwiches for dinner. Why not have pancakes for lunch? The extra work of separating the eggs and whipping the whites took about five minutes. Let me tell you, well worth it. Some of the best pancakes I've ever tasted. Super light, moist and delicate. The recipe made almost two dozen. The kids wolfed down three each within minutes and the rest went into a Ziploc bag straight to the freezer. Now I have several future pancake breakfasts waiting no matter how out of it I am.

Ricotta Pancakes With Blueberries

• Recipe by Neal Fraser

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons milk
• 6 ounces ricotta cheese (1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• Unsalted butter, for the griddle
• 1 pint fresh blueberries or 2 cups frozen blueberries, thawed

Directions

1. In a small bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the milk, ricotta, sugar and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and whisk until the batter is smooth.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites at medium speed until frothy. Beat at high speed until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter until no streaks remain.

Preheat the oven to 225°. Heat a griddle, then lightly butter it. For each pancake, ladle a scant 1/4 cup of the batter onto the griddle; be sure to leave enough space between the pancakes. Cook over moderately low heat until the bottoms are golden and the pancakes are just beginning to set, 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle each pancake with a few blueberries and press lightly. Flip the pancakes and cook until golden on the bottom and cooked through, about 1 minute longer. Transfer the pancakes to plates and keep them warm in the oven while you make the rest. Serve the pancakes with maple syrup.

*I made some adjustments to this recipe. I didn't have whole milk so I used 1% milk. I also added two tablespoons of sour cream to replace some of the richness. I didn't have blueberries so mine were plain. The eggs I used were extra large/jumbo size and instead of whipping them until frothy, I went for about four minutes. I cooked mine on my electric griddle at 325 degrees F. I flipped them when the edges were starting to set. Oh, and I never did use my oven. They turned out amazing!


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