Cookie Dough Pancakes

It’s Pancake Day and as always being true to myself I am completely behind. I’ve been testing this recipe for a couple of weeks but decided today was a good day to shoot and upload them, okay I was heavily influenced by a friend who just wanted to eat pancakes but I can’t complain, they were so good I didn’t even sit down to eat them!

Spiced Rum & Raisin Pancakes with Rum Coconut Cream and Chocolate Sauce - Bakemas Day 20

Pancakes are kind of a rarity when it comes to my family, when I was a kid we had them twice a year Pancake Day and Boxing Day, I guess Boxing Day pancakes are kind of a tradition now that I think about it.

Apple Cider Pancakes with Sautéed Apples and Toffee Apple Cider Syrup

Today I have apples on apples on apples and maybe just MAYBE it’s slightly the wrong season for this, but I don’t care! Hey, maybe I’m just really prepared for autumn, 4-5 months overly prepared, okay let’s be honest I’m more likely to be half a year late than half a year early but still. Yeah, it’s four and a half months till October, crazy, but I’ll shut up about that now.

Can we focus on this being apple cider rather than anything else because to me, cider is a summer thing. Okay, it’s an all year round kind of thing but summer is definitely a time I crave cider. Ice cold cider on a hot summer’s day is sort of something I’ve grown up with from summers in France drinking 0.2% alcoholic cider as a kid and then bringing bottles of it home on the ferry to being a teenager drinking cider with friends in the sun and having barbeques in the middle of fields.

Coffee Pancakes/Crêpes with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce

Last week sort of ran away from me but even though Pancake Day is over I still wanted to share this recipe, and who in their right mind would turn down pancakes?

I made your morning quicker by putting your coffee in your breakfast; you can thank me when the caffeine kicks in. So maybe this is more of a dessert than a breakfast because I probably wouldn’t suggest you have ice cream for breakfast on the daily but I wouldn’t write it out completely. This is kind of the perfect dessert, with pancakes, coffee, chocolate sauce and ice cream you can’t really go wrong, I even went as far to make homemade ice cream and even though I couldn’t eat a whole scoop I did try it and it was definitely the most delicious vanilla ice cream I’ve ever had, I guess I have a lot to live up to when I start experimenting with dairy free ice cream.

Beetroot, Goats Cheese & Spinach Pancakes/Crêpes with Chutney

I think this might be one of my favourite things I’ve made for this blog so far, even though this revelation will probably cause my chutney supplies to deplete drastically faster than I’d anticipated and in a few months probably leave me wishing I’d made at least double the amount I did, I guess the four jars I have left after giving away two to my sister and brother in law and two to my granddad and his wife for Christmas will have to suffice.
It’s actually quite shocking that up until now I’d only entertained the idea of sweet pancakes, sadly that’s a lot of wasted time I’ve accumulated without savoury pancakes in my life but I’m sure I’ll have made up for that soon.

One of the best things about this is how simple this is, if you know how to make pancakes the rest is a doddle and as I sat down to dinner after the string of “damn this is good” comments I felt like I was trying something new in a nice little restaurant. So simple but so delicious; it's definitely worth more than the little effort it takes to make.

Ratatouille Stuffed Pancake/Crêpe Enchiladas

It’s pancake day in T-minus 170 hours, in other words it’s in 8 days and I intend for you, me, your neighbour’s cat and anyone else who applies, to be fully prepared.
In all honesty I’ve always been a little bit put off by the idea of savoury pancakes because occasionally I have these weird things about certain foods. I am far from a picky eater but there are just some things I can’t deal with like bread and cheese together, especially when it involves butter but I also love anything with melted cheese on and that includes bread, making sense yet? Yeah, it never does. I’m pretty open minded to re-trying things though, like that time my mum gave me liver straight out the frying pan, give me a second while I involuntary shudder at the memory, but out of everything I’ve tried on here that I was a little unsure I’d like, I think this might just be my favourite.

I’m sure the majority of you are versed in the whole savoury pancake thing but in the very slight chance that you’re not you need to try this. I never imagined melted cheese and pancakes could taste so good, but here we are, and possibly the best bit of this is the crispy ends, can I just cook a batch of pancake ends up? This is a little time consuming however it’s pretty simple and if you’re making it for a family dinner it’s a good all hands of deck kind of recipe and how can anyone turn down the prospect of pancakes?
I’m sure your neighbour’s cat will be eagerly awaiting the next pancake post.

Pumpkin Pancakes with Bacon, Pecans & Butterscotch Sauce

I just got my head screwed on straight and realised it's November in two days TWO DAYS! It’s like I blinked and October is over and now I'm having a mini meltdown because there are so many things to do and such little time to just enjoy the excitement of Christmas coming. Its school photography season so I’ve been what feels like ridiculously busy the past couple of weeks. It might be a little manic this year but I actually really enjoy school photography season although maybe that’s because I only have to deal with all the spreadsheets, order forms and photo packing for a couple weeks out of the year. Having to deal with all that on a daily basis sounds horrendous. I spent the beginning of my week editing and re-sizing hundreds of photos, is it inappropriate to mention I had to edit bogies that were dripping out of someone’s nose. So it might be Friday but better late than never right? Because this idea has been running round my head for over a month and only now have I got around to making it. This is pretty much the perfect autumn breakfast, although I will say I'm usually entirely too sleepy to make pancakes in the morning but at least I can fantasise about it.

Apple Butter with Vanilla Pancakes

After we plucked our apple tree we had an abundance of apples all lined up in bags in the garage. Although it's not near as bad as when we had two apple trees I figured I needed to do something with them, we couldn't just freeze them all, our freezers would be overflowing with fruit and they're already full of boxes of blackberries.

I'll be honest Apple butter is kind of just fancy apple sauce although it is definitely worth the few extra hours you have to leave the hob on. This recipe is just perfect autumn breakfast....or lunch, maybe dinner? or a snack. Maybe just eat it for all meals, there's carbohydrates, protein and fruit you're all set.

I got a little carried away with this recipe, the pancakes were actually sort of an afterthought, in the days leading up to making this they were always a shall I shan't I, and I'm glad I shalled! These pancakes are the perfect mixture between crepe and pancake, although I didn't purposefully make them this way is was a pleasant and welcome oops, maybe I'll make them like this more often they just seem lighter this way.

Oatmeal chocolate chip pancakes (whole wheat & sugar free option)

I had been thinking about making these for a while, when a friend stayed over I finally got round to it and our reactions went as so; "umm these are good - oohh these are really good - these are - urrghh - they just - and the - and its - duuudddee". 

I know most people are butter and syrup people when it comes to pancakes, something that is incredibly baffling to me, butter melted on your food? what even is that, just why. Although, I'll admit I've never been a fan of butter on anything (unless it involves garlic). I'm not sure how many people do this but any pancakes I make I eat with greek yogurt, I don't know why it's just insanely appealing to me. I don't know why more people don't do it, unless I've missed an entire bandwagon floating by me. Don't get me wrong I'm usually all about the crepes and I feel like if you even uttered the idea of melting butter on them you should be shunned, but I'm sure somebody has done it and enjoyed the fatty fluids atop their pancake; maybe it's a delicacy in some remote part of the world that I don't know about (and here's where you all scream an obvious country that does it). 

I do occasionally get cravings for american pancakes however the majority of american pancake recipes I've tried usually end up feeling heavy, sit for a long time in my stomach and aren't as light and fluffy as I imagine them. I know what you're thinking, whole wheat flour and oats in pancakes, how are those not heavy, but I promise you they're not. I've found after a few times making these to tweak the recipe that these pancakes are the kind of food that just gets tastier the more you eat. Even my mum thought the banana was strange at the beginning and she gave me a sort of "they're okay" response but then she proceeded to eat 2 more. If you're not used to banana in pancakes then you may find the first bite a little strange, but take another bite they will not disappoint, and if you're not a banana lover you're preaching to the choir but they're barely noticeable after the first bite.

Healthy Brownie Pancakes (gluten free)

Pancake day may be over but tis the season!

I made this the first day of my sugarless month because I was dying for something chocolatey and they definitely hit the spot. I'll give you fair warning that these are quite hard to flip and they don;t always end up looking like your typical pancakes, so don't worry if they bunch up a little bit. If you have a good non stick pan this should be a lot easier, I am in dire need of a new one. They taste just as good however they look.

Nutella & Strawberry Crepe Cake

In the magnificent holiday that is pancake day is finally here, I'm not sure if any other countries have it but pretty much....we eat pancakes. If you don't have pancake day, just eat them anyway, because it's a great excuse.
As a kid pancake day was almost like christmas, it was the only day of the year we got pancakes; apart from on the occasional trip to France. I remember it so clearly, I must have only been about 8, in a picturesque little cafe upstairs with white lace table cloths a plate of pancakes being brought to me and my eyes growing the size of golfballs. Obviously now I'm older I can make them myself and sometimes when I'm feeling a little ill and craving lemon I'll cook up a batch.

When I was around 14, on Saturdays the town over had a market with one of those stalls that made giant pancakes OH MAN, they fold it up in the giant triangle and slip in a cone and all the nutella melts and it's just...if you've never had one and you come across one just do it, don't even think just do it.

The person who came up with the wondrous invention of pancake cakes needs an award and I will definitely be making different flavours in the future, however I am 100% a purist when it comes to pancakes so tomorrow I will be consuming copious amounts of pancakes with lemon and sugar.