Mascarpone Pancake with Grapes and Blue Cheese Sauce

Our neighbor, Pi Soo, gave us 4 blocks of cheeses her husband brought back from France. Apart from the blue cheese and goat cheese, which I'm familiar with and distinctive enough to distinguish, I have no idea what the other two blocks are. Pi Soo, too, has no idea what they are besides "this one is the strongest". Thanks.

Today's pancake is yet another showcase of putting what's available to the table. I vaguely remembered making some blue cheese grapes salad some time ago - I knew this sweet fruit and acquired cheese will work in compliment. But it somehow didn't seem right to have blue cheese salad for breakfast.

Then my thought wandered into ricotta pancake, sour cream pancake, cream cheese pancake.... etc. What about blue cheese pancake? I don't see why it wouldn't work. But I wasn't going to risk the most important meal of the day on my experiment and decided mascarpone pancake would be more of a sound thing to do.

Since Adrian was making a savory omelet with the "strongest cheese", it seemed gastronomically correct to balance it out with a little more sweet. Hence the addition of honey, which went surprisingly great with the blue cheese sauce.

Ingredients:
(serve 2)
Blue Cheese Sauce

• Blue Cheese
• Cream cheese (soften at room temperature)

I didn't measure the amount used. The cheeses were more or less in equal part. You may add a splash of whole milk to thin it out if necessary. Blend the ingredients to a smooth consistency.

Roasted Maple Pecan

• Pecan nuts, roughly chopped
• Coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon Real Maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon natural cane sugar

Use just enough coconut oil to coat pecan nuts evenly. Toss the nuts with maple syrup and sugar. Bake in the oven at 150C for 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool.

Mascarpone Pancake

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 - 2 Tablespoons natural cane sugar
• 1/4 cup homemade mascarpone (soften at room temperature)
  
• 1/4 cup whole milk
  
• 1 egg (lightly beaten)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

To serve

• Seedless green grapes and black grapes, halved
• Nectarine, cut into wedges
• Blue cheese sauce
  
• Honey
• Roasted Maple Pecan
  
• Mint leaves
  

1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and sugar. Set aside.
2. Whisk together mascarpone, milk, egg and vanilla essence.
3. Fold the mascarpone mixture to flour mixture. You may add more milk to desired consistency. Stir in lemon zest to combine.
4. Coat and heat a 8" saucepan with coconut oil. Pour 1/2 of the batter to the heated pan and fry until the surface is bubbly. Flip and fry the other side till lightly browned. Repeat with the remaining batter.
5. Serve with fresh fruits and blue cheese sauce. Sprinkle with pecan nuts and drizzle honey around. Garnish with mint leaves.
   

Sour Cream Pancake with Raspberry Jam and Balsamic Reduction

You don't see much use of fresh blueberry in this blog because they are too expensive. I always comforted myself that frozen blueberries made just as good ingredient as the fresh ones. Until yesterday.

Few days ago I bought four packets of fresh blueberries because they were on sales - 99THB per packet for what normally would have cost close to 300THB. What a bargain. So I thought I would use the fresh blueberry to make come French toast (that I didn't blog) and feel rich about it. Once again, it showed fresh is better. The frozen blueberries shrink or shrivel, leaving skin once burst under heating, not a pleasant texture to chew on. With the fresh ones though, it felt more alive and real. I wish the fresh blueberries are on sales more often.

This morning pancake however has nothing to do with cooking blueberries. It's raspberry jam that I made few days ago for another French toast that I, again, didn't blog about. I learned to add bits of butter to the jam for a more developed taste. Try it! This pancake is soft and fluffy with just a hint of lemon, not unlike the Lemony Ricotta Pancake, with minimal adaptation.

Ingredients:
(makes 2 8" pancake)

Sour cream pancake:

• 3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup almond meal
• 1 tablespoon natural cane sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• zest of one lemon, grated
  
• 1 cup sour cream (lemon juice + cream)
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil

To serve:

• Homemade raspberry jam
• Balsamic reduction (black pepper, lemon juice and salt to season to taste)
  
• Fresh Blueberries

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a big bowl.
2. Mix sour cream, beaten egg and coconut oil in a separate bowl.
3. Fold sour cream mixture over dry mixture. Gently fold to combine.
4. Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil over medium heat. Drop half the batter into the pan. Cook until the bottom is set and the top begins to form bubbles.
5. Flip and cook until it's nicely browned.
6. Repeat with the other half batter.
7. Top one pancake with generous amount of raspberry jam. Sandwich with the other pancake. Throw in some fresh blueberries and drizzle with balsamic reduction to serve.
   

Pancake: Banana Caramel and Strawberry Balsamic

I have been stoked with pancakes since last week's Banana Pancake with Coconut Syrup Peanut Butter. I have practically been waiting to do another pancake since. Nothing special about this week's pancake but the sauces: Banana Caramel Sauce and Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar. They were good individually, but also superb with mixed. The best part is, they are super easy to make.
I made quite a few changes in the recipe, which I'll show in bracket and italic.

Ingredients
(make 20 10cm pancakes)
4 eggs
2 tbs white sugar
375ml buttermilk or 200ml milk + 175ml Greek yogurt (lemon juice + milk)
50g melted butter (Coconut oil)
1 1/2C self raising flour (whole wheat flour + salt and baking powder)
1/2 tsp cinnamon sugar (cinnamon + sugar)
200g fresh ricotta

Option:
berries
chocolate chips

1. Separate the white and yolk of the eggs. Beat the yolk with sugar until pale and creamy.
   
2. Stir in buttermilk and melted butter to blend (I used coconut oil).
3. Fold in the flour (whole wheat flour + 1 tsp salt + 1 1/2 tsp baking powder), cinnamon and sugar.
   (I prepared this a night ahead and stick the bowl into the fridge for overnight)
4. Stir in ricotta cheese. Whisk the egg white until soft peaks are formed. Carefully fold the egg white into the flour mixture. DO NOT OVER MIX.
5. Melt a tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Scoop 1/2 cup of the mix for one pancake. When the bottom is about to set, (Optional: sprinkle some berries or chocolate chips over the top) flip to fry the other side. You may transfer the pancake to a 100C oven to keep warm while you work on the sauce.

Banana Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
(enough for 2 pancake)
1 Banana, chopped
2 Tablespoon butter
2 Tablespoon brown sugar

1. Melt butter over low heat. Stir in sugar and banana. Stir infrequently until the sugar is melted.
2. Spoon over pancake to serve.

Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar
Ingredients
Strawberry, diced
2 Tablespoon brown sugar (maple syrup)
2 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Toss everything together. Chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.