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.

Gingerbread Latte Layer Cake with Gingerbread Men - Bakemas Day 16

I think I’m pretty much on the way to being better and it’s all thanks to this cake! Okay, maybe not but I mean cake usually makes most things better especially if it involves a triple whammy of flavours and gingerbread men.
Side note: One little snag, you will need a big ol’ tin! This is by no means a big cake but we have an old, and I mean old, quality street tin that looks like it would feed a chocolate hungry village and I still had to kick the gingerbread men over so it would fit in.
Making cakes like this is relaxing to me, I know you probably wouldn’t think it but this is based on the basic cake recipe I know off the top of my head. When I’m in need of any cake this is my go to and I can honestly say it’s the best. I didn’t use a typical ginger cake recipe in this because I wanted the textures to all be the same a little tweak here and there and I’d say it’s pretty close to the flavour of a traditional ginger cake but without the more dense texture.
This would be perfect for a Christmas party; it’s pretty quick to make, serves a lot of people and you can’t really go wrong if there’s gingerbread men on top of your cake!

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.

Creme egg cheesecake

This is the first baked cheesecake I've ever made, I have a favourite cheesecake recipe and I pretty much never stray from it, especially because when I crave cheesecake, that's the one I want. I'll just say it wasn't the smoothest of bakes I've ever had. We have a small oven and a big oven and I use the small oven for all my baking because I find it gives a better bake. If you're baking something that wants to rise an unknowable amount it's best not to bake it in an oven where it can hit the grill. Their was salvaging involved, but with most salvaging it went well and after the small mishap it turned out pretty great.