Blueberry Pancakes

Classic Blueberry Pancakes; could winter mornings get any better? ❤

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Fluffy Oatmeal Pancakes

This weekend, dig into these super Fluffy Oatmeal Pancakes – guilt free, gluten free, refined sugar free goodness in one meal! ❤

Orange Chocolate Pancakes

For a weekend dose of zesty fun, indulge in these pillowy Orange Chocolate Pancakes! 🙂

The Foodscape turns TWO!

Today, The Foodscape celebrates its Second Anniversary! I can’t believe it’s been two years since my first post on The Foodscape. Little did I know then that it would become my life. 🙂

The Foodscape has had a tremendous year indeed. It started out with the routine five working days and blogging over the weekends, survived a big move to another country, launched its logo, travelled to Thailand and had an incredible Christmas, filled with the season’s best. Then 2016 rolled in and I worked hard to put many wonderful recipes out for you. Happy Days!

Lemon Blueberry Pancakes

If you’ve been to my blog before, you sure know about my pancake obsession. For the past two years that The Foodscape has been live, I’ve experimented with different pancake flavours, only the best of which I’ve shared with you. I’ve given you the lowdown on The Perfect Pancake, as well as the recipes to my fabulous Chocolate Chunk Pancakes and Sticky Date Pancakes! This time around, I’m back with a fantastic recipe for my latest invention – Lemon Blueberry Pancakes topped with Lemon Caramel Sauce!

Chocolate Chunk Pancakes

Though I’m late, I wanted to wish you guys a belated Happy Pancake Day! 🙂 Pancake Day, also known as Shrove Tuesday, is celebrated on the day preceding Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) with a nice plate of soft pancakes, a dollop of butter (okay, not just a dollop) and loads of syrup (or/and jam, Nutella, chocolate, whipped cream… you get the drift!). While I cannot (and will not) confine my pancake eating to the one day, I believe celebrating pancake day is a necessity. I mean, what better way to go into 40 days of fast and abstinence than to scarf down pancakes the day before? I think its perfect! Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not assuring you that I’ll give pancakes up all through lent. But I’ll try. 😛

The Perfect Pancake

Good breakfasts are a rarity in The Foodscape household. We either wake up just an hour before we need to leave the house in the morning, which means we grab a bowl of cereal before we head out, or on days when we’re home, we wake up very close to lunch time and grab a smaller bowl of cereal. I’m not kidding, the boyfriend and I give Kellogg’s Chocos some serious business! 😛

So when I woke up last morning, I was quite surprised with my extreme hankering for pancakes. I say ‘extreme’ because I forewent my ritual of lazing in bed for just a few more minutes, and almost instantly was up on my feet, whisking away in the kitchen. That positively never happens. Well, I guess for pancakes, anything, yeah?

In these pancakes, I decided to use baking powder instead of baking soda which is the usually recommended choice when it comes to a pancake recipe. I remember reading somewhere, a while ago, that using baking powder makes fluffier pancakes. So I thought, why not? The key to making these pancakes light, soft and fluffy is the way you beat the batter. You have to make sure that you beat it enough to incorporate air into the batter, but also not over-beat it that you end up knocking out the air from the batter. Tricky, yes; impossible, no! All you need to remember is, the airier the batter, the fluffier the pancakes turn out.

Here’s what you need for The Perfect Pancake:

• All Purpose Flour – 1 and 1/2 cups
• Castor Sugar – 3 tbsp
• Baking powder – 1 tbsp
• Eggs – 2
• Milk – 1 cup
• Butter – 1/4 cup, melted
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of cinnamon powder
• Vanilla Extract – 2 tsp
• Nutella – 1 cup

And here’s how to make it…

Step 1: In a deep dish, mix the milk, eggs and melted butter.

Step 2: Sift in the flour, and add baking powder and sugar and beat until just incorporated.

Step 3: Add salt, cinnamon and vanilla extract and give it a final mix, but be sure not to over-beat.

Step 4: On a low flame, heat a flat pan or griddle and grease it with butter.

Step 5: Pour 1/4 cup of batter into the centre of the pan and let it cook. When bubbles begin popping on the surface of the pancake, flip it over and fry until the other side is light golden. When you’re happy with the colour of the pancake, take it off the heat and fry the next.

Step 6: When you’ve fried the entire batch, stack them up, pull your cellphone out and take a drool-worthy picture of them to share on Instagram like I did. When the pancakes look this good, this is an essential step! 😉

Step 7: Sandwich a teaspoon (or two, three, four!) of Nutella in between each pancake.

Step 8: Pour the remaining Nutella over The Perfect Pancake stack, allowing it to flow over the edges. Top with strawberries or any fruit/sprinkle of your choice and eat right away.

I’ve made pancakes before, always using baking soda, but they’ve never turned out like these. They’ve always been clumpy, flat and rubbery – the exact opposite of how you want your pancakes to be. I don’t know what the science behind it is, but baking powder works perfectly! I must tell you, it was incredibly hard to stick to clicking photographs of them when I so badly wanted to stick a forkful in my mouth! God bless the boyfriend for bearing with the incredibly long photoshoot on a hungry tummy, with only the occasional ‘How much longer?’ 😀

These pancakes are subtly sweet, buttery and pillowy; just like the ones in dreams (that’s assuming you, like me, dream about pancakes). The cinnamon and vanilla give them a light fragrance; aromas you’ll enjoy as they melt in your mouth. And if you’re not a fan of Nutella, they go perfectly well with butter, maple syrup, sticky toffee sauce or just as. And it’s super easy to make them as well – 20 minutes, tops!

Whip up a batch of these perfect pancakes and eat up. Breakfast doesn’t get any better than this! 😀

 

 

 

Date Pancakes with Sticky Toffee Sauce

 

I am a huge fan of breakfast for dinner! There is nothing better than sitting on the couch, your favorite show running on TV and a plate of pancakes, crepes, or waffles in front of you after a long day’s work. Many a time, I look through the left-overs in the refrigerator and think, ‘Urggh, such boring food. I’ve had enough of that and that and that!’ These are the times when breakfast comes in handy for dinner.

When I was away at college, breakfast for dinner was a regular affair – I would take a while off doing my projects and put together a chicken salami sandwich or some crepes filled with Nutella, and I was good to go. Easy-peasy stuff, ready in minutes, and super tasty – I believe that’s impossible to resist! However, having moved back home, and with mum around, it’s tough to get away with not eating wholesome meals for dinner. So when I am home-alone, I treat myself to a delicious dinner of all things breakfasty.

Last night was no different, I was home alone stuck with a fridge full of various traditional Indian dishes that I just couldn’t be bothered to touch. I wanted to try something different. So I quickly chopped up some dates, soaked them and proceeded to make the pancake batter. Truth is, I was craving Sticky Toffee Pudding, but ill that I was, I didn’t have the strength to bake. So I decided to put my own spin on the classic, and make Date Pancakes with Sticky Toffee Sauce.

Here’s what you need for the Pancakes:

• Dates – 200 g, hulled, chopped finely and soaked in hot water
• Yogurt – 1 cup, (can be substituted with sour cream)
• All Purpose Flour – 7 tbsp
• Brown Sugar – 4 tbsp
• Baking Soda – 1 tsp
• Salt – 1/2 tsp
• Eggs – 2
• Cinnamon powder – a pinch

This is how you make these delicious fluffy pancakes:

• In a bowl mix together the flour, brown sugar, baking soda and salt. Add yogurt and mix until just incorporated.
• In a separate bowl, beat eggs.
• Add beaten eggs to the flour and yogurt mixture and mix thoroughly.
• Drain the chopped dates and add to the mixture. Add the cinnamon powder and give the batter one last mix.
• Heat a griddle or a frying pan on medium flame and grease it with butter.
• Pour about 1/3 cup of batter into the pan. Let one side of the pancake cook for about two minutes until the edges turn golden and bubbles appear on the surface. Then flip over and cook on the other side.
• Make sure that both sides of your pancake are a deep golden hue and then take off of heat.

Here’s what you’re going to need for the sauce:

• Unsalted butter – 113 g
• Dark Brown Sugar – 1 cup
• Heavy Cream – 3/4 cup
• Cinnamon Powder – a tiny pinch
• Salt – 1/2 tsp

This is how you prepare the Sticky Toffee Sauce:

• In a skillet, melt butter and brown sugar on low heat.
• Once melted, gradually add in the heavy cream while stirring continuously until the sauce becomes thick.
• Add in the cinnamon powder and salt and bring to a boil.
• Once it bubbles, take it off the heat.

Once both, the pancakes and the sauce are ready, stack the pancakes and douse them with the sticky toffee sauce. Dig in while still warm!

I must admit, I have a real problem with getting pancakes to be circular in shape, as you can see in the pictures. No matter how much I try, the pancakes I make always take on the shape of amoeba or of an odd map. But nonetheless, they taste absolutely heavenly.

Date Pancakes with Sticky Toffee Sauce are just amazing. The pancakes are fluffy and not too sweet except when you bite into a chunk of dates. The salty sticky toffee sauce poured over the pancakes creates the right balance between sweet and salt. The warmth and sweetness of the dates, the fluff of the pancakes and the buttery sticky sauce, all make for an incredibly succulent, tasteful meal.

These Date Pancakes with Sticky Toffee Sauce are a real treat. You’ll surely find yourself yearning for more!

Warning: If you’re watching your weight, breakfast for dinner is a terrible idea! But you can always cheat once in a while. 😛