The Best Buttermilk Pancakes

My husband and I recently had a small morning argument about pancakes. After some chivvying, he got up and made pancakes for breakfast (I make nice Saturday morning breakfasts all the time, without chivvying). For reasons only he knows, he eschewed all of the recipes I've already blogged, and found yet another random one on the internet to try. Again forgetting previous advice, he decided not to separate the eggs and whip the whites, used a random mug instead of a proper measuring cup for the flour, tried making his own buttermilk, and overbeat the batter. The result: bouncy tough glue circles; what I imagine dwarves chew for breakfast. Even with as nice toppings as I could find, they were inedible.

I spent half an hour or so Googling until I found someone who'd already been through this loop, and found the perfect husband-proof buttermilk pancake recipe. No egg white separation, but you will still need to remind him to buy buttermilk, and to leave batter barely mixed. I have updated it to metric quantities with Australian ingredients (I think our buttermilk is thicker). We didn't think we would eat all of these, but they were so delicious we polished them off. You'd be healthier splitting these between three people, or four as part of a brunch.

Ingredients

• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 250g plain flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 eggs, slightly whisked
• 500ml Casa Buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons melted butter

Method

In a medium bowl, stir together the salt, baking powder, baking soda, flour and sugar. In a separate larger bowl, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk. Drizzle in the butter as you continue to whisk.

Switch to a wooden spoon and pour the dry ingredients on top of the wet; stir until almost completely combined. The more you stir pancake batter, the more flat and tough the pancakes will be, so mix only until a few streaks of flour are remaining.

Butter and heat a pancake pan and cook ladlefuls of batter until bubbles begin to form, flip and cook until golden. Serve immediately: I like mine with maple syrup, crème fraiche and strawberries.

Banana Pancakes

This is my new favourite weekend morning breakfast! The only problem is, I have to patiently wait all week for a couple of bananas to overripen: rare in our house. I used this recipe but substituting homemade buttermilk (milk with some lemon juice left for a few minutes); I reckon real buttermilk would give an even fluffier result. I halved this recipe to make enough for two.

Ingredients

• 200g (1 1/3 cups) plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 55g (1/4 cup) sugar
• 2 eggs
• 250g mashed banana
• 330ml (1 1/3 cups) buttermilk
• 40g butter, melted

Combine all of the ingredients together, stirring until the flour is no longer visible. Fry in dollops until golden brown (about a minute) and then flip for another minute. Serve with sour cream, maple syrup, and strawberries.

Mega Veggie Breakfast: Hash Browns

I prefer to shop once a week, since I just don't have much time in the evenings, and the challenge of extending the same shop through the week often prompts me to try different meals in order to use up the food while it's at its best. However, I also like starting my weekend with a proper cooked breakfast, rather than the bowls of cereal we have through the week. Sometimes it's toast, often it's pancakes or waffles, but every so often I want a proper English breakfast.

This week, I had the craving, but hadn't really done anything to justify pigging out on... well, pig. Also, the fridge was at Peak Bareness. So, I put together this Mega Veggie Breakfast :) The dregs of buttermilk were enough for pancakes from The Joy of Cooking, beans came from a tin, avocados I'd left ripening on the counter all week finally got sliced, there were leftover fried mushrooms from dinner, I poached eggs in the microwave (only one explosion), and made my first home-made hash browns. I used this recipe, modifying it for the two golf-ball size potatoes I had left in the fridge. Despite the tiny amount of potato, it made four hash browns - enough for two people as part of this breakfast. So you'll really make loads if you follow their instructions and use six medium potatoes!

Ingredients

• 6 medium (about 1.2kg) desiree potatoes, peeled
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 1 egg, lightly whisked
• Pinch of salt
• Vegetable oil, to shallow-fry
• Select all ingredients

Coarsely grate the potatoes into a colander. Use your hands to squeeze out as much excess liquid as possible -- this is really, really important, so give it some welly!

In a large mixing bowl, combine the grated potato, flour, egg and salt, and stir until well-combined. Make flattened cakes with the potato mixture -- the thinner you make them, the faster they will cook, and the less oil you will use.

If you're feeling fancy, use a deep fryer to cook the hash browns. If you're feeling like you want to live a few days longer, use as much oil as it takes to cover the bottom third of the hash browns, and flip them once the underside is golden brown. Drain on kitchen towel and serve as quickly as possible, dusted with a little more salt.

Huevos Rancheros

Decided to do something a little different after Zumba today - well, I decided the night before, since it helps to cook the refried beans in advance. In the morning, it was a matter of minutes to put the ingredients together, and then enjoy a protein-rich meal with a big cup of coffee.

Ingredients:

• 400g refried beans
• three cloves of garlic
• a tin of chopped tomatoes
• Cheddar cheese
• 4 tortillas
• 4 eggs
• fresh coriander
• guacamole or sour cream

Put the tortillas on a large, foil-covered or well-oiled baking tray. Spread on the refried beans. Drain the tin of tomatoes and slice the tomatoes into wedges; dot on top of the beans. Try to make a bit of a well with the beans and the tomatoes. If you like your egg runny, separate the white and pour it into the well; cook under a hot grill for a couple of minutes until it is almost cooked. Cover with cheese and plop on the yolk, then grill for a further minute until the cheese is sticky and melted and the yolk is hot. Cut into wedges and serve garnished with a few leaves of fresh coriander, with plenty of guacamole or sour cream to go with.

Crepes

A wonderful way to start the weekend - although taking the time to make them after Zumba and a shower was an exercise in patience! I used to use Delia's recipe but nowadays I just chuck a load of ingredients in a bowl and whisk them all together at once, then thin it out with water as needed. Ingredients being: three eggs, about 3/4 cup of flour, about the same again in milk, a tbsp ish of vegetable oil, a tsp of sugar and a pinch of salt. Toppings are more important! My favourite combinations are:

• Peanut butter and banana slices
• plain white sugar and lemon juice
• maple syrup and crème fraîche

And I had a cup of tea while making them. YUM.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

A great way to start the weekend, and use up a bit of spare sweet potato and egg whites at the same time :) Modified this recipe. Usual tall-pancake tips apply: don't overbeat the batter, don't swill around the pan like a crepe, do cook over a low heat so it rises and cooks through, and do serve as quick as you can so they're still hot and fluffy. We topped these with sliced plums and maple syrup, and I also had one with a spread of peanut butter - yum!

Ingredients:

• 1/3rd of a sweet potato (about 150g unpeeled)
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• a sprinkling of ground nutmeg
• 2 egg whites, or one large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp sugar

Peel and cut the sweet potato into chunks, then boil for 6-7 minutes, until tender. Drain and mash with the butter, then set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and nutmeg. Whisk the egg whites until frothy, then combine with sugar, salt, milk and mashed potato (in the mashing pan is fine). Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture, and stir gently to combine, stopping as soon as no further dry flour shows. Ladle a quarter of the batter at a time into a pancake pan over a moderate heat, flipping each pancake when the base is golden brown - about a minute or two. Put on a warm plate, sort out your toppings, and serve.

Stewed Plums

Whenever I buy plums, they're usually not ripe to start with, but as soon as my back is turned, they go mouldy. And unlike apples or pears, they don't go mouldy on the outside, but turn weird and brown on the inside, while maintaining the illusion of being perfectly delicious taut-skinned fruit on the outside. I love a perfectly-ripe plum but sometimes I feel like I waste two or three other plums in order to actually get that perfect ripeness. In a totally unrelated story, I love having fruit on my breakfast, but once strawberries go out of season I always feel bad buying them - plus they're really expensive.

Cooking plums this way solves both problems. I love it when that happens.

Home-made lemon yoghurt and stewed plums. A sprinkling
of granola and my breakfast is ready!

Get yourself a big bag of plums, when they're in season. If they're already perfectly ripe, don't bother with this - just eat and enjoy! But if they're hard and you're not sure whether you're going to have time to watch them like a hawk all week, get yourself a big saucepan and halve and de-stone them into it. Put a tablespoon of water in and give the saucepan a gentle shake, so that the bottom has a tiny about of liquid in it. Cover and bring to a simmer, turning every minute until the plums start to break down - then cook, turning every two minutes, until they are bright purple and tender, but not completely mashed. It's nice to still have big pieces of cooked plum in the mix. Decant into a pyrex bowl or tupperware (that you don't mind getting stained purple...) and keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Fluffy Pancakes

This is a great way to start your Sunday, especially if you have nothing planned and just want to chill out and digest for the rest of the day! I used my take on Delia's recipe, although I didn't have any buttermilk, so I added a bit of crème fraîche and milk instead. And I poured the combined flour-and-milk-and yolk into the whites instead of the other way around - it actually worked a bit better. However I didn't remember to add the oil so you can see the pancakes were noticeably less conductive, and didn't brown as evenly as in my previous photo. Still totally yum in the Perth sunshine!

French Toast

Now here is a GREAT way to start the weekend. Coffee not optional (unless you're a picky Welshman...)

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• half a cup of milk
• 4 slices of bread
• butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp sugar

Break the eggs into a shallow dish and whisk gently with the milk. Heat butter in a non-stick frying pan. Dip as many slices of bread as you can fry at one time into the egg mixture and ... fry. They should take about a minute per side. Dust with cinnamon and sugar, and serve with maple syrup and strawberries.