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

Magdalenas

Today’s recipe is my entry for Sugar High Fridays, a monthly food blog event started by Jennifer from The Domestic Goddess food blog . This month the event has been hosted by the owner of In My Box food blog. The task was to prepare a dessert that is at least 100 years old.

I’ve been planning to make magdalenas for a while, so when I’ve learned that these little Spanish cakes have been actually baked since the Middle Ages I decided to give them a try.

Magdalenas are little sponge cakes somehow similar to French madeleines. They’re incredibly soft and moist inside, and a little bit crunchy outside. What makes them different from French madeleines is their shape - French madeleines are baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions, while the Spanish magdalenas use mini muffin pan. Unlike the French madeleines which are made with real butter, original Spanish magdalena recipes use olive oil.

Even though some modern recipes replace the olive oil with margarine or butter, sometimes also adding some milk to the batter, I opted for the original olive oil version. Searching through Spanish food sites, I found a few similar recipes which used an equal weight of olive oil, flour, sugar and eggs, often with a hint of lemon. The only difference between the recipes was actually the amount of baking powder. Some of the recipes used significant amounts, while other didn’t use baking powder at all. I decided to check whether the baking powder is really necessary here and made half of my magdalenas with and half without it. The result? To be honest, I didn’t notice any significant differences in the structure of the cakes, neither in their flavour. Also, all the magdalenas have risen the exact same high, although the ones with baking powder were ready a few minutes earlier.

As for the olive oil flavour, well, it’s palatable, but totally dominated by a wonderful lemon flavour, so no need to worry about that. And, if you really can’t stand a little bit of olive oil flavour, you can always use sunflower oil instead. Also, if you don’t have mini muffin pan, regular muffin pan will work as well.

Magdalenas

Makes about 36 little cakes

250 g olive oil (or sunflower oil)
250 g eggs*
250 g pastry flour or all-purpose flour
250 g sugar
lemon zest grated of one large lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 ° F). Grease or line mini muffin pan.
2. Whisk the eggs. Gradually add the sugar whisking constantly until you obtain smooth batter.
3. Continue whisking, gradually pouring the olive oil in.
4. Fold in lemon zest and sifted flour.
5. Spoon into prepared muffin pan.
6. Bake for 20 to 35 minutes (the time will vary depending on the size of pan you're using).

* you'll need about 4 extra large eggs in this recipe. Weight the eggs with their shells.

Print the recipe

Recipe in Polish/Przepis po polsku:
Hiszpańskie magdalenki