blueberry buttermilk pancakes

I charged up the battery on my old d-slr this week. It's been a while since I played around with it. Last winter I upgraded my lens to a pretty snazzy macro for improved food photographs. All photos today were shot on my Nikon D40 with a AF-S Micro NIKKOR 85 mm. No flash.




After a wildly successful catering event this week, I had a few ingredients left over. Including most of a litre of buttermilk. What do you do when life hands you buttermilk? You make buttermilk pancakes, of course.

This recipe was modified from the one found here at epicurious.com

Ingredients:
2 C washed and dried fresh blueberries
1 1/3 C all purpose flour
3 Tbsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 C buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
dash of ground cinnamon
real maple syrup to serve



Prepare the blueberries and leave them out on a folded sheet of paper towel to dry on the counter.



Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with a couple layers of paper towel to absorb excess oil. Put it in the oven and as each batch comes out of the pan, put it on the baking sheet and leave it in the oven to stay hot.

Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk wet ingredients.

Add wet to dry. Do not over-beat. Small lumps are okay.

Heat about a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a non-stick pan over medium heat.

I started with oil and then switched to butter to keep the pan greased between batches. I like my pancakes to be a bit crispy around the edges, so I like lots of hot oil or butter in the pan. The first few pancakes are always a little wobbly, but once you get your heat right and the motion down, you kind of get a rhythm going.

Fold the blueberries into the batter with a spatula. I started coking the pancakes before I thought of adding the cinnamon, but now would have been a good time to do that.

Pour a heaping tablespoon of batter into the pan. Don't overcrowd. You need to have room to get in and flip.

You know the pancakes are reading to be flipped when little air bubbles begin appearing on the top.

A second spatula is often helpful in the flipping. Don't worry if you screw up the first few times. I've been flipping pancakes for years and I always start out a little rusty. To check that you've got it right, cut open a finished pancake to make sure the batter is fully cooked through.

Make sure you remove all the little mini pancake bits (bb's, my mom calls them) and loose blueberries so that they don't burn over the course of cooking.

Serve hot with as much maple syrup as you like.


Other topping options:
sweet yogurt
whipped cream
fresh fruit
jam
apple butter
creme liquer

If you're like me, and always make too much food, these pancakes can be covered and refrigerated. They will reheat beautifully in the toaster oven tomorrow morning. Or later tonight. More that likely, later tonight, as I don't think they are going to survive the J monster and his powerful pancake chomping action.