Apple Bacon German Pancake

Another take on one of my favorite breakfast foods, the german pancake, but this time with bacon!

Pancakes from scratch

I was in a "no recipe" mood this morning, and my wonderful wife asked for pancakes. (Go ahead, twist my arm.... OK, you can stop now. You had me at "pancakes").

Today I wanted to go with something a little eggier and to experiment with whipping the egg whites.

Ham and cheese potato pancakes

I have a steady stream of potatoes coming in from our CSA so we cooked up our backlog into mashed potatoes. I have been trying to come up with some new ways to incorporate them into other meals as an ingredient.

Today's experiment: potato pancakes with ham, cheese, and leeks.

Pancakes with almond meal

I like incorporating a lot of almond meal in my cooking. I have tried waffles with almond meal in place of flour and they didn't hold together very well.

This time thought I'd try pancakes with half the flour replaced with almond meal. This worked well in terms of texture, browning, and flavor. The one problem was that they were quite tricky to flip without them tearing and breaking up.

They browned up nicely.

To top them, I mixed up some butter, maple syrup, and a little pomegranate syrup. This tasted nice, but I needed to warm the butter a little to get it to blend better.

Next time: I wonder if I made the batter a little thinner if that would make them easier or harder to flip. I think part of the problem was that the inside was staying too tender to hold together.  It also seemed to work a little better to make three smaller cakes rather than one large one at a time. 

Gluten free Caramel Apple German Pancake

I got a suggestion from Stacy that the Thick German Pancake might work well in a gluten free form. Coming on the heels of the Caramel sauce experiment, I decided to do a double experiment: Gluten free Caramel Apple German Pancake.

Apple Sausage Thick German Pancakes

Yet another variation on the Thick German Pancake this morning.

I had a bag of apples that I got to make a first attempt at Apple Cabbage Stew for the Skyrim party (more on this in a later post). So I got to thinking about making a traditional Apple German Pancake. But then I remembered having some breakfast sausage links in the freezer. And then I remembered how much I like apples and sausage together.

To wit, Apple Sausage Thick German Pancakes!

Winter Squash German Pancake

In the continuing saga of "things to cook with winter squash" I experimented with a roasted butternut squash German pancake.

For the topping I took some chunks of roasted butternut squash from the freezer and sauteed them in butter, brown sugar and a little fine spices. Then otherwise followed the recipe for the Thick German Pancake from The Best Recipe cookbook.

I thought they were tasty and passed my "qualified breakfast food" filter fine. Not as sweet as a pumpkin pie. I think I will do this again, but I'm not sure it will become a regular.

Apple Butter Thick German Pancake

When a Thin German Pancake just won't cut it, it is time to break out the thick german pancake.

The original recipe called for apples browned in butter and brown sugar.  I often make them with peaches. We don't have any apples at the moment, but do have the memories of applies ensconced as apple butter. So, with a healthy dose of "What could happen?" opened the apple butter and this is what happened ....

Thin German Pancake

I make two different dishes that are each called a German Pancake, but are quite different. One is a thick cake, baked with fruit in the bottom and flipped when served. That is not what I am talking about today. Today I am talking about the thin cake that I used to love to get at Elmer's before a good friend gave me a lovely kit with the ingredients and a recipe so I could make one myself.

These are similar to the ones I blogged about in muffin tins last year.

Strawberry-Blueberry Crepes

Experimented with some crepes tonight.

For the filling I warmed some fresh strawberries in a little sugar with a Tbs each of sour cream, plain yogurt and port. I didn't quite have enough fruit, so I added some fresh blueberries.

For the batter I used

• 1/4 Cup each: whole wheat pastry flour, white whole wheat flour, 10-grain flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 Tbs port
• 1 Tbs melted butter
• 2 eggs

Mix dry then wet ingredients with a whisk (or a food processor). 

Peach Oven German Pancake

During the remodel I was in the market for things I could cook in my micro-convection oven. 

One thing that looked promising was a German Apple Pancake recipe I found in The Best Recipe cookbook. The only problem was that it required cooking the apples for 10 minutes in a skillet and I didn't have ready access to a stove. 

Bacon Pancakes

Bacon Pancake

I saw a picture on Facebook of someone pouring pancake batter over a strip of bacon on a griddle. I knew I had to try this.

I decided to go for a more traditional round pancake so I cut the (precooked and frozen) bacon strips in half and put them side by side. Not much more to say about it than that, other than they were very tasty.

Two Bacon Pancakes: Twice as good!

German Pancakes in muffin tins

Sharon found a neat idea for making german pancakes in muffin tins then filling them with a fruit sauce. I basically used a half recipe for german pancake except with the butter (melted) mixed into the batter and poured into greased muffin tins. Made nine from the half recipe (3 eggs).

For the topping I mixed some home-made jam with frozen peaches and a little lemon juice in a saucepan and heated until the peaches were warmed through.

Very tasty and makes a nice looking single serving with other stuff, or group a bunch together for a hearty breakfast.

7 Gauge Steel Griddle

Who else could go for some flap jacks? 

I was unhappy with my old non-stick griddle which  wasn't thick enough and I felt like I need to be so delicate with the finish. Not the relationship I wanted to have with my griddle. So I decided to spring for a Chef King Griddle made out of 7 gauge "Unbreakable High Quality Steel". I bought mine at Rose's Restaurant Equipment.

After some initial seasoning I gave some pancakes a whirl.

Sourdough pancakes

I have a sourdough starting going which yields a cup of starter a day. Some days I'm not up for baking, so sourdough pancakes are in order. Today I added 1 cup of starter to 1 cup of my pancake mix, and egg, a splash of orange juice, some cocoa nibs, a half cup of toasted almond meal, and a quarter cup of warm milk. Let the batter sit for half an hour. Then fried them up.