Summertime is when all sorts of berries appear. Strawberries first, then raspberries and blueberries and eventually blackberries. Right now you can buy big baskets of blueberries for only a couple of dollars. They are sweet and turn your tongue blue if you eat too many.
A classic recipe for blueberries is blueberry pancakes. It's rather incongruous because pancakes are flat and blueberries are often big and round. As a result you can run into some real problems. Cooking pancakes with blueberries may start out fine, but then when you go to flip them, the berries stick up from the batter and they never cook quite right. So first off you need a thick batter. You also need way more blueberries than most recipes call for. After all, the blueberries are the main event.
But since it is pancakes we're talking about, the next thing you need is a really tasty batter. If not, you'll wonder, why not just eat the berries and skip the pancake altogether? A grainy cornmeal batter makes for a great blueberry pancake. I particularly like using finely ground blue cornmeal. And a little lemon peel is also very nice. My best tip for making any kind of pancakes is to use a Chinese soup spoon to pour the batter onto the griddle. It has a flat bottom so it is easy to keep from dripping all over the place, and if you fill it up, it makes the perfect sized pancake every time.
Amy's Double Blue Pancakes
Serves 2--double the recipe for 4 people
Ingredients
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup blue cornmeal
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 Tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
Instructions
Mix the dry ingredients. Add the blueberries to the dry ingredients, this will prevent clumping. Mix all the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, then add to the dry ingredients. Mix well. Pour by the spoonful on a greased, preheated non-stick skillet or griddle. Cook until bubbles form and pancakes turn brown on the bottom, then flip and continue to cook. Serve with maple syrup, preferably warmed.
Enjoy!
