Gingerbread Dutch Baby

I'm the sort of person who plans out her meals a week in advance. Mostly because I only go to the grocery store once a week. It makes things easier for us on busy nights after school if I know what I need to do in the kitchen before we walk in the door.

Sometimes those plans go by the wayside and I wing it. Sometimes Mrblocko has an extra meal set aside for him because he had an appointment, his boss took him out to lunch, or the leftovers stretched out for dinner for only one person.

Instead of making another meal that would generate too much food before we could eat it, I'll make something that serves two people. Usually, this is Blockette's favorite food, egg sandwiches.  This time I decided to switch things up and made a gingerbread dutch baby from My Daily Morsel.

The recipe calls for a 9" skillet that is oven safe.  I don't have one of those, but I do have a 12" one!
So I doubled the recipe and made that big fat baby in a 12"pan.  I thought this would be a bit more filling as a single recipe calls for 2 eggs.  If we were having egg sandwiches, I'd make us each 2 eggs as well.  This and a side of fruit was just right for me and my ravenous daughter.  If you were having lots of other sides, like hashbrowns and sausage and/or bacon, a doubled batch of this batter would probably feed three.

I topped our dutch baby pancake with powdered sugar.  I thought that the maple syrup would overpower the gingerbread flavor.  Of course when I shook on the powdered sugar I told Blockette it was snowing.  She loved that as she is desperately hoping it will snow more than half an inch, and stay on the ground for more than a few hours.  Until (if) that happens, she'll just have to be satisfied with generous dustings of snow in the powdered sugar form.

Gingerbread Pancakes for Two adapted from My Daily Morsel
4 large eggs
2 T brown sugar
1T molasses
2/3 c flour
3/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t ginger
1/4 t cloves
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t kosher salt
2/3 c milk
4 T butter
Powdered sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 400°F. Place eggs in blender and blend until smooth and pale in color. Add brown sugar, molasses, flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and milk and blend until smooth. Melt butter in 12 inch ovenproof skillet over high heat, swirling it up the sides to evenly coat the pan. Pour the batter into the skillet and transfer to the oven. Bake 15-20 min, until the pancake is puffed up. Remove from oven, dust with powdered sugar aka snow!

Pumpkin Pancakes

It's been a while since we talked pumpkin. Did you think my freaky pumpkin fascination had diminished with the passing of fall? You did?  Well you were wrong! Get ready for another week of pumpkin goodies!

Can you even handle it?  No?  Well...um. Sorry bout that!  Pumpkin is awesome.  Embrace it.  You'll feel better. 

Anyhow...I made these pumpkin pancakes from Texanerin Baking.

 OK.  So when I say I made these pumpkin pancakes, what that means is I chose the recipe, gathered all the ingredients and smooshed them together.

Mrblocko did the ACTUAL cooking and flipping of the pancakes.

Because, apparently, I CANNOT cook pancakes.

I'm ok with that cause Mrblocko can.

I will assure you that while the pancakes are dark, they are most definately NOT burnt.  (Although, if I cooked them they would be little flat disks of coal.)  The pumpkin is obviously going to make them darker, but the sugars in the pumpkin caramelize and add a darker brown to the finished product.

Overall, I'd say these pancakes are darn healthy.  Can you believe there is only 2 T of maple sugar in the whole recipe?  And no other sugars either?  I had to double check that it wasn't a misprint.  But no.  Super duper low on sugar.  I loved that because I could actually have them with syrup.  Usually pancakes and waffles have so much sugar that I get sick if I have more than a tiny bit of syrup.  Not so with these babies!

These pancakes also have oats and whole wheat flour, a veggie, and extra protein from the cottage cheese. 
Yeah. 
I said cottage cheese. 

My family balked at that too.
You can't taste it at all. And since it gets all whirled up in a blender/food processor, you can't see it either.

I think I may have over mixed the batter on these pancakes.  They were so delicate that after they had syrup on them, they would fall apart as they were being stabbed with a fork. We found that the solution to this problem was to have the syrup in a small bowl on the side for dipping.  This also resulted in us using far less syrup than if we'd poured the syrup on top of the pancakes.  See!  This recipe is an all around win win.


Healthy Pumpkin Pancakes from Texanerin Baking
1/4 c old-fashioned or rolled oats
1/4 c whole wheat flour
1 Tbaking powder
2 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t nutmeg
4 eggs
3/4 c cottage cheese (I used small curd)
1/2 c + 2 T pumpkin puree
2 T canola oil or coconut oil (I used veg oil)
2 T maple syrup (I used pancake syrup)
1 T vanilla

Pour oats in the food processor and give it a few pulses. You want them to be a little finer is all. Then add all the other ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined. There definitely shouldn't be any lumps. Because we're using cottage cheese here, I don't recommend making these without the help of a food processor or a good blender.

Cook in a medium pan over medium heat. For mrblocko, it took two minutes before I flipped them, and then another minute on the next side.

Notes : You can use 3 1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice in place of the separate spices. (I did this.)

Syrup AND Waffles from Scratch

I made my own fake maple syrup ya'll! (Apparently, making syrup gives me a southern accent.)

It turns out, whipping up a batch of syrup is insanely easy.  Just dump the ingredients in a pan and bring it to a boil.  Ding, fries are syrup is done!

Mrblocko claims that this syrup is infinitely better than the talking lady bottle, or the stuff from a wooden home structure.  The flavor is much richer for sure.  Oh, and the color of the syrup is this wonderful dark brown.  Why on earth do they need to add all those fake coloring chemicals?  Why people? Why?

Now I'm sure there are some of you saying, well that's pure sugar!  Um, what do you think that stuff in the grocery store is?  Or the real stuff that oozes out of tree?  You're not meant to drink it by the tumbler full three times a day.  Just use it in moderation and all will be hunky dory.  Well, unless you're diabetic.

Since I couldn't very well eat the syrup plain, I tested out the recipe for nutmeg waffles from Taste of Home.  The waffles tasted great, but the recipe made just enough for the three of us.  The recipe says it feeds four, but they lied. Next time I make this recipe I will make a double batch.

Basic pancake syrup adapted from food.com
1 1/4 c br sug
1/2 c sug
3/4 c cornsyrup
1-1 1/2 c water (depending on how thin you like your syrup.  We like ours thin so I used 1 1/2 c water)
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 t maple flavor
1/4 scant t almond

Dump everything in a pan and boil 3 min. Pour over waffles, or pancakes, if you are freaky like that.


Nutmeg waffles from Taste of Home - serves 3
1-1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup  milk
1 tsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and baking soda. In another bowl, combine egg, milk, oil and vanilla; stir into dry ingredients until smooth. Bake in a preheated waffle iron according to manufacturer's directions until golden brown.

Cake Batter Pancakes and Ketchup???

I've discovered the secret to making pancakes less messy. Well, I discovered it like Columbus discovered America. (Cause how can you discover somewhere that's already got people living there?) Anywho, I "discovered" this idea on Real Simple. Put your pancake batter in an empty (clean) ketchup bottle. (Of course you could use a catsup bottle, but only if you are a communist.  True Americans use Ketchup.  For REALZ.)

I used the jumbo 40 oz container, cause we use lots of ketchup in our house and it was the container I had on hand.  Using a funnel is highly recommended for putting the batter into the squeezy container.  If you spoon it in, you'll just make a huge mess, and that defeats the whole purpose of using the bottle.

Now onto the actual pancakes.  Remember when I wrote about Cake batter ice cream back in September?  Well I made cake batter pancakes from How Sweet It Is with some of my leftover powdered strawberry cake mix.

Oh, you should have seen Blockette's face when I told her we were having pink cake batter pancakes for dinner.  Man.  Cake? And Pancakes?  At the same time?  For dinner?  She about hugged my guts out and told me I was the best mom EVER!  Gotta love that.

I only slightly screwed up.  The recipe calls for sprinkles but I only had the tiny kind, not the jimmies.  So when I added the sprinkles to the batter they all dissolved.  This made the batter less pink and more of a slight weird pinky purple color.

I tried adding the sprinkles once the batter was on the griddle but they still weren't really visible once the pancakes were cooked.  And, I ran out of sprinkles before I used up all the batter.  Blockette was slightly sad at this, but really how sad could she be?  We were having cake flavored pancakes for dinner.

The pancakes also lost their pink color when I cooked them.

They browned up like regular pancakes.

This was sort of a bummer too, because Blockette and I were excited to have PINK pancakes. Again, really, how sad could we be? CAKE PANCAKES! For DINNER. Woot. Woot.

So what did they taste like?  They were an equal combination of cake and pancake flavors.  It was not like eating a slice of cake for dinner at all.  (Not that I have EVER done such a thing.)  The cake was not a lie, but it was not overwhelming either.

I don't I like these any better or worse than regular pancakes. I wouldn't open up a box of cake mix just to make these little guys, but if I had a box that was already open, I'd make these again.  They were a nice treat for Blockette.  Oh, and just to clarify, waffles still rule. Go team Waffle!


Cake Batter Pancakes from How Sweet it is makes about 12 pancakes
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup yellow cake mix
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 cups milk (I used vanilla almond milk)
assorted sprinkles

Combine flour, cake mix, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix. Add 1 cup of milk, egg and vanilla extract and stir until smooth. You want the batter to look like regular pancake batter; not too thin, not too thick. This will vary greatly on the brand of cake mix you use. Start with 1 cup of milk and add more if needed. I suggest a small taste test as well to see if the pancakes are flavored enough. Preheat a skillet on medium heat. Fold desired amount of sprinkles into batter. Pour batter in 1/4 cup measurements onto skillet and let cook until bubbles form on top, about 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook for 1 minute more.

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Oatmeal Pancakes

Hey how bout some pancakes? Let's pretend to be healthy shall we, and make oatmeal brown sugar pancakes from Baking Junkie. Because well all know that if something has oatmeal in it then it must be healthy. Oatmeal scotchie cookies are my favorite health food. But we aren't making cookies today, we are making pancakes I tell you!I felt the need to doctor this recipe. This recipe contains pancake mix. Now I don't know what type of pancake mix the Baking Junkie uses, but the brand I like says to add 1 1/3 c milk and 1/3 c oil for 2 cups of mix. Baking Junkie's recipe doesn't have any oil and calls for just 1 1/4 c milk. I didn't think that would be enough moisture for 1 cups of mix plus 1/2 cup of oats, so I added the milk and oil that the box suggested.

Also, I used old fashioned oats instead of the quick cooking kind. I used the old fashioned kind because it is so much healthier than the quick cooking variety. Hehehe. Just kidding. It was the only kind I had on had. I just pulsed my oats in the food processor until I thought it looked like quick cooking oats.

These pancakes turned out super puffy, which you can't really tell from the picture. But trust me, they are poofy pancakes. Maybe even the poofiest ever. Or not. What do I know about pancakes?

Overall these pancakes were good, but no substitute for a waffle. Waffles still reign supreme. Yay team Waffle.

(Note to self: Call Park District and suggest "The Waffles" as a soccer team name for the fall season.)


Oatmeal Brown Sugar Pancakes from Baking Junkie
2 cups pancake mix
½ cup quick cooking oats
2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1 ¼ cups milk
2 eggs
½ tsp cinnamon

Stir together all ingredients. Pour over greased griddle or buttered skillet, making pancakes as large or small as you’d like. Once pancakes start to bubble at edges, flip and continue cooking until cooked through, 3-4 minutes on each side. Makes 5-6 medium sized pancakes.

Peanut Butter Pancakes for the Ones you Love

So I've got oodles of backlogged recipes to post about, but today I felt like writing about last night's dinner. I wanted to make something different for Valentine's Day. Most fancy Valentine's dishes are not the typical fare that is pleasing to a 5 year old. While Blockette is really good about eating those "weird" things, she doesn't always enjoy them. I wanted to prepare something that the whole family would like, especially my littlest Valentine. I had a recipe from Crepes of Wrath for peanut butter pancakes that seemed like it might fit the bill.

Blockette loves peanut butter. I mean she loves peanut butter as much as Chocolate loves peanut butter. She wants a pbj sandwich nearly every day for lunch. She is already telling me that she doesn't want to eat school lunches in first grade next year, she wants a pbj instead. Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I ate peanut butter, or peanut butter and honey sandwiches every day through 12th grade!

If you're a regular reader of this silly little blog, you also know that we love to eat breakfast for dinner. I especially love making waffles because there is a standing rule that we don't have dessert when we have syrup at dinner. This made the pancake idea winner for me, because it meant I didn't have to plan a fancy Valentine's dessert either!

Mrblocko was curious why we were having pancakes and not waffles for dinner. I said, well I couldn't find a tasty sounding peanut butter waffle recipe. I wasn't quite sure if this pancake recipe would work as waffles. I wanted to try them out as they were intended first, before I ventured off into unknown territory. There was no sense in ruining a potentially good thing.

As far as pancakes go, these were really good. They had a very distinct peanut butter flavor, which as peanut butter lovers, we thought was a very good thing. Sydney from Crepes of Wrath got this recipe from eat boutique who, in turn, got it from The Food Network's Cooking For Real with Sunny Anderson. Apparently there was a blackberry syrup that was a part of the original recipe. I wish I had known this because I bet it would have tasted fantastic with the peanut butter in the pancakes.

Instead of the blackberry syrup, we ate ours with butter and either syrup, honey, apple butter or strawberry preserves. Mrblocko liked the syrup best, but Blockette and I thought it was a toss up between the preserves and the honey. Mrblocko said that the pancakes would also taste good with chocolate syrup. Then he said he was only joking, but we all know that if we didn't have a little girl to set a good example for he would have gone into the fridge and smothered his pancakes with chocolate goop.

We ate this meal with Cara, or blood oranges. (When I say we, I mean Mrblocko and Blockette because I can't stand oranges, something Mrblocko claimed yesterday that he never knew in the nearly 10 years we've been married. Where has he been?) It was really a happy accident that the oranges were red, but pretty cool for Valentine's Day.

We also had Aidells Chicken and Apple sausage. These are my favorite sausages. Man. They are good, but pricey. I scored a deal at the end of the year with a coupon and a sale, so I stocked up. These little sausages have been talking to me in the freezer for a while now. I thought they'd make a nice treat for Valentine's Dinner. We like to slice them into coins and heat them up so they get crispy, brown and caramelized all over. Yum!

I wish Meijer's carried more of the Aidells brand. Apparently they have a pineapple and bacon flavor and a roasted garlic and asiago flavor that I didn't know about until just now. I think they would enjoy being in my belly so I'll have to keep an eye out around and about for those little gems.

Now that I've gone off on a tangent about sausage, let's get back to the pancakes. One comment I'd like to make on this recipe is to pay attention to your heat level on your stove. The recipe says to cook the pancakes on medium low for 3-4 min per each side. We thought that the heat was too low to cook the pancakes all the way and we cranked the heat up to just shy of medium. Don't do this. You will burn your pancakes. Even on medium low, we found that the pancakes only took 2 minutes on each side. Finally, I did remember to take a picture of the pancakes. Ok. So obviously I didn't remember to take this picture as this is me IN the picture and I haven't figured out how to bi locate myself...yet. Blockette begged to take the picture and I said she could to avoid an argument, figuring I'd take my own and use those for the blog. Nope. Wouldn't you know it, hers turned out better than mine!

Peanut Butter Pancakes from Crepes of Wrath
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons milk, plus extra if needed to thin
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter, melted
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter

In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. In another bowl, whisk egg, milk, melted peanut butter, and vegetable oil. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Add a little extra milk if batter feels too thick.
Heat griddle over med-low and melt 1T butter in it, then using a paper towel, rub butter around griddle to make a very thin layer (you don’t want your pancakes cooking in a pool of butter). Sprinkle some water over the pan and see what it does. It should dance around but it should NOT sizzle or spurt. When pan is ready, pour 1/4 c batter for each pancake. Don’t overcrowd as they will spread as they cook. Cook 3-4 min per side, til golden. They won’t bubble like normal pancakes because of the thickness of the peanut butter.

Apple Fritter Pancakes

I've been on this breakfast for dinner kick lately. I've found it's a great way to make dinner inexpensively. Although, after a while I start to get bored with the usual. I was browsing the recipes over at Tasty Kitchen, and found a recipe for apple fritter pancakes. I thought they sounded simple and delicious.

Well, I must have done something wrong because the batter really thin. Since I'm a waffle girl, I'm used to waffle batter. It's nice and thick and easy to work with. I understand that pancake batter is much runnier. This batter was so runny that I had to switch from the griddle pan to a medium size skillet to keep the batter contained. Let me tell you, making pancakes one at a time ain't fun. I felt like I was at the stove for twelve days.

The pancakes did turn out tasting OK. They weren't anything special though. Even though I increased the cinnamon from 1/2 tsp to a heaping tsp and the cloves from 2 pinches to 1/8 tsp, there didn't seem to be any added flavor from the spices.

I won't make these pancakes again. They were just too much work for something so average. If I'm wanting pancakes I guess I'll just stick with the box, or the cinnamon roll pancakes I made back in March.

Apple Fritter Pancakes from Tasty Kitchen
2 cups Your Favorite Pancake Mix
1-⅓ cup Buttermilk
2 whole Eggs
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
½ teaspoons Cinnamon
2 pinches Cloves
1 whole Tart Apple, Peeled, Cored, And Diced

Combine everything except the apples and mix well. Fold in apples and let batter sit for 5 minutes or so while the skillet is heating up. Heat a large nonstick skillet or griddle to medium heat. Coat with a little butter, then pour batter in 1/3-cupfuls into pan. When the edges start to look a little dry and bubbles break the surface, flip them over. If you find they’re cooking too fast on the outside, reduce heat to medium low. Because these are denser and have chopped fruit, they might take a little longer to cook all the way through. Serve with warm maple syrup.

Makes about 14 pancake

Pancakes? For Breakfast????

I'm a waffle girl. With waffles, both sides cook at the same time and the little light on the machine turns a happy green when the waffles are nice and brown. My waffle iron even makes a little clicking noise when it changes from red to green. It's brainless, which is my kind of cooking.

On the other hand, pancakes you gotta pay attention to. I in the almost 8 years Mrblocko and I have been married, I've only ever made pancakes once, and it was for dinner, not breakfast. They were less than scrumptious. OK, they were gross and I refused to eat them. I'm pretty sure they went into the garbage and we went out to dinner instead. We did that a lot back then, before I could cook.

I've had the baking/cooking bug lately, but I've been fighting this cold and just haven't had the energy for much of anything past breakfast. So I had an idea last night to make something for breakfast other than the usual cold cereal. Mrblocko said he didn't have to be into work until late and offered to take Blockette to Bible school in the morning. How perfect was that! We wouldn't be rushed to eat and I would have more time since I wouldn't have to get myself ready along with Blockette.

I didn't want to make waffles since I still had leftovers in the freezer from when Mrsthunder was over last week. Reheating leftovers wasn't going to do anything to sate my cooking bug. I decided that more than enough time had passed since I had made pancakes and my kitchen skills had greatly improved since then.

Last time I made pancakes, I used a box mix. I don't know if that was part of the problem. 9 times out of 10 when I make waffles I use a mix and they turn out fine. Just in case the mix was the culprit, I decided to make the pancakes from scratch. I thought the Chai Spiced Buttermilk Pancakes from Amelie Eats sounded particularly delicious. I even had the Fireside Chai from Zhena's Gypsy Tea the blogger suggests. (This is the best caffeine free chai I've ever had, plus it comes in a way cool tin.)
I was extremely proud that the pancakes were neither raw nor burnt! Mrblocko and Blockette loved them. Blockette even had seconds. She NEVER asks for seconds. Ever. Mrblocko made a comment that she could have a peanut butter and jelly pancake sandwich for lunch and Blockette's eyes got so huge I thought they were gonna pop right out of her head. She's a pretty dramatic girl and I don't think I've ever seen her that jubilant about anything, let alone food.

It took me some getting used to the chai spices, but once my palate became acclimated to the unexpected, I thought they were pretty good. If I had been thinking, I would have topped them with honey instead of the traditional maple syrup. The honey would have been more complimentary to the chai flavors.

I still like waffles better. There is something about the slight crunch of a waffle's exterior that I miss while eating a pancake. While I was eating breakfast, I couldn't help thinking how this batter would fare in the waffle iron. The next time I get the breakfast baking bug up my butt I just might give it a whirl.

Chai Spiced Pancakes from Amelie Eats
2 eggs
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
healthy pinch of ground cloves
scant 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon crushed black peppercorns (or a dash of freshly ground black pepper)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or 1.5 tbsp white vinegar and remaining amount milk)
1/2 cup brewed chai tea
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
½ teaspoons vanilla extract

In a large bowl beat eggs. Add buttermilk, chai tea, butter and vanilla and mix well. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt. Mix well until mostly smooth. Let batter set for a few minutes.

Heat non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Pour one ladle of batter onto the pan, make sure it's not too thick as I've had issues with the pancakes not cooking properly in the middle. Cook on the first side until bubbles that form start to pop. Flip the pancake over with a spatula and cook until golden brown. Repeat as required.