Taste & Create: Whole Wheat Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been almost one year since I participated in Taste and Create last time. Taste and Create is a monthly food blog event organized by Nicole from For the Love of Food blog. The participants of the event are paired together and have to try a recipe from each other's blogs. This time my partner was Natalie from Oven Love food blog. Natalie made my corn soup, while I opted for her delicious whole-wheat pancake recipe. I’ve never had American pancakes before, so when I saw the recipe on Natalie's blog, I thought it’s a perfect occasion to finally try them. They looked amazingly tasty, and seemed more healthy than most of the pancake recipes I’ve seen so far.

The pancakes came out truly delicious, incredibly soft, delicate and very fluffy. In the original recipe they're served with strawberry sauce, which is basically chunky strawberry puree with a little bit of maple syrup. The sauce didn't come out particularly sweet, and since the pancakes aren't themselves very sweet either, I served them with some honey to drizzle. Enjoy!!!

Whole Wheat Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce

Makes 12-14 pancakes

FOR THE PANCAKES:
¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup whole-wheat flour
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
¾ cup skimmed milk
1 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp honey
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

srtawberry sauce, maple syrup or honey to serve

FOR THE STRAWBERRY SAUCE:
4 cups frozen strawberries, thawed
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp maple syrup


TO MAKE THE PANCAKES:
1. Mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
2. In another bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, buttermilk, honey, and vanilla extract.
3. Preheat a large nonstick griddle or skillet over a medium-low flame.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with dry ingredients. Mix
only enough to combine them. The batter should remain lumpy.
5. Use a 1/4-cup measuring cup to ladle the batter onto the griddle or skillet.
6. Cook over medium heat until small bubbles appear on the surface of each pancake, then turn and cook until golden brown.
7. Serve warm with the strawberry sauce and maple syrup or honey.

TO MAKE THE STRAWBERRY SAUCE:
1. Using a food processor, process the strawberries into chunky puree.
2. Place together with the lemon juice in a small saucepan. Heat over low heat until warm.
3. Stir in the maple syrup.

Recipe adapted from The Food You Crave: Luscious Recipes for a Healthy Life by Ellie Krieger

Print the recipe

Recipe in Polish/ Przepis po polsku:
Razowe pancakes z truskawkami

Maple Leaf Butter Cookies

I had to abandon my blog for a few weeks as I was studying for the final exam at my university. Still, I was cooking and I managed to take a few pictures, so I have some catch up blogging to do. First, I want to tell you about the Maple Butter Cookies I made almost 3 weeks ago. I’m not really a cookie person, but I really wanted to try the maple leaf cutter which I had brought from Canada last summer. Besides, baking cookies is sooo much fun - it always makes me feel like a little kid again!!!

For the maple shaped cookies, I wanted to use a recipe with maple syrup. I searched the Internet for recipes of that sort and found one on Epicurious site. I’ve made a few changes to the recipe - I used brown sugar instead of the regular one, I added some baking powder, reduced the amount of salt and used two, instead of one egg yolk. I also rolled the dough thinner than the recipe says.

Despite that the cookies didn’t taste maple much (the maple flavor was very subtle), they were really tasty – buttery, amazingly crispy and perfect with a cup of tea. My family loved them so much that all the cookies disappeared within two days.


Maple Leaf Butter Cookies

225 g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup maple syrup
2 egg yolks
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour

Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy and beat in maple syrup and egg yolks until combined well. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt over mixture and fold in thoroughly. Chill dough, wrapped in plastic wrap for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F)

Roll out the dough, then cut out cookies with maple-leaf cookie cutter. Arrange cookies on buttered baking sheets. Bake for about 12 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool.

Przepis po polsku:
Ciasteczka maślane w kształcie klonowych liści