Cookbook Challenge: Week 28, Breakfast

Recipe: Crepes
From: Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion

The theme for this week's Cookbook Challenge is breakfast - fortunately a much easier theme than last week's! The only problem with the theme this week were all the options - I had visions of omelettes, baked eggs, pancakes, French toast and bacon circulating in my head.

But then I got up this morning and went to the kitchen and suddenly - Crepes! I want to make crepes! As you do.

The best thing about crepes is how quick they are to put together and how quickly they cook. The bad thing about crepes is that I'm not very good at making them. Mine always end up rather thicker than the thin, lacy ones I imagine should come out of the frying pan. The recipe for crepes in The Cook's Companion says "you will get better - and so will the pancakes!" but I don't think this applies to me. I keep trying though.



Whenever I make pancakes or crepes for breakfast, I always like to serve it with fruit - it makes me feel better about eating something that's not terribly healthy! So today I stewed a couple of pears in a raspberry sauce to go with the crepes. We keep receiving masses of pears in our fortnightly fruit and vegetable delivery but I'm not a huge fan of pears. I really only like fresh pears when they are still crunchy, but the bloody things ripen so quickly. Fortunately, I don't mind cooked pears so poaching them is one way I deal with them.

The stewed pears and raspberry sauce is super easy - I cut a couple of peeled pears in half (removing the core), and put them in a small pot with a literal splash of water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Into the pot went a handful of frozen raspberries, and then I put the lid on and let it cook until the pears were soft. After that, I removed the pears and simmered the leftover liquid without a lid to reduce and thicken it. When the sauce was nice and thick, I stirred in a small knob of butter, and it was ready.

If you don't like crepes (wtf) there are other pancake/waffle/crepe posts here.

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.

Update: see the round up at My Food Trail.



Crepes

From Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion

Makes about 8-10 crepes

30g butter
pinch of salt
1 & 1/2 cups of milk
150g plain flour
2 eggs

Warm the butter, salt and milk until the butter has melted.

In a separate bowl, sift in the flour, and then make a well in the middle. Break the eggs into the well and work in some flour.

Add the warm milk and whisk until smooth. Refrigerate for 2 hours before cooking. Add more milk if the batter seems too thick.

Heat a frying pan over medium-low heat. Wipe the pan with a piece of buttered paper for the first pancake. Lift the pan from the heat, add in a ladle of batter and swirl the pan so the batter spreads to the edges.

Put the pan back on the heat and cook for a minute. Lift the thin outer edge of the crepe with a spatula and flip to cook the other side for another minute. Repeat with the rest of the batter.

Cookbook Challenge: Week 8, Sweet

Recipe: Berry buttermilk pancakes
From: Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion

The theme for this week's Cookbook Challenge is "sweet" and I decided to make pancakes. What is sweeter than a leisurely Sunday breakfast of pancakes with the one you love? Not much, I think!

The Cook's Companion suggests preparing the batter the night before, up to the stage before adding the egg whites, for a quick breakfast. Great idea, although preparing the batter from scratch doesn't actually take all that long. It's the cooking that takes the longest, though there are machines to help with that.....



The original recipe didn't specify any sugar to be added to the pancake batter, so I included a tablespoon of caster sugar. Even with the additional sugar, these pancakes aren't very sweet - smothering them in maple syrup is a definite requirement. They are beautifully fluffy though and definitely worth the effort.

And a tip - don't be tempted to just throw your berries into the batter before cooking, unless you don't mind irregular sized pancakes. I made three perfect round pancakes before I got bored and threw all the blackberries into the batter. After that, all the pancakes were interestingly shaped! Oh well. Judging by the five pancakes Alastair scoffed down, the strange shapes didn't detract from the taste!

See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.

Update: See the round up for this week at My Food Trail.



Berry buttermilk pancakes

Adapted from Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion

Makes 18 pancakes

3 eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk
60g butter, melted
300g plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
extra butter or oil spray
About a cup of fresh berries

Beat the egg yolks well and then whisk in the buttermilk and melted butter.

Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and fold in.

Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and fold into the batter.

Heat a frying pan and lightly grease. Ladle in 1/4 cup of batter and scatter some berries over the uncooked batter. When bubbles form, flip with a spatula and cook the other side before transferring to a plate. Repeat until all the pancakes are ready.

Serve with additional fresh berries and maple syrup.

Vietnamese Coconut Waffles

After Alastair and I rolled out of bed one Sunday, we wandered into the kitchen in search of food. Alastair started making coffees, while I stared blankly into the fridge and tried to think of what we could eat.

Suddenly – bing! Waffles! I went online and started searching for a waffle recipe. I found a couple of simple ones and then I looked over at the milk container and realised that Alastair had used all the milk for coffees.

Doh! How was I supposed to make waffles without milk? Breakfast was going to be delayed until someone could go and buy some.

And then I came across a recipe for Vietnamese coconut waffles. Instead of using milk, coconut milk is added. Ding ding! Breakfast needn’t be delayed after all. I was happy (and so was my growling stomach).

These waffles smell divine while cooking, and the eating is pleasant too. I poached a couple of peeled and cored pears in sugar syrup while the waffles were cooking, and we ate them with just the pears and without syrup. They were delicious - fragrant and coconutty. Initially I wasn’t going to blog about them, but they looked so cute with the pear perched on top that I couldn’t resist taking a photo!

If you like your waffles crispy, leave them in the waffle iron until they are dark brown and put them on a cooling rack after you pull them out. They crisp up quite well.



Vietnamese coconut waffles

Adapted from Vietnamese World Kitchen

1 cup plain flour
7 tablespoons caster sugar
1 & ½ teaspoons cornflour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg, separated
1 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 & ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Heat up the waffle iron/maker.

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cornflour, salt, and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolk, coconut milk, butter and vanilla extract.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir gently until incorporated.

With an electric mixer, beat the egg white to a stiff peak.

Fold a third of the egg white through the waffle batter before folding through the rest of the egg white.

Add the batter to the waffle iron and cook for about 3 – 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Pull out of the waffle iron and cool on a rack – they will crisp up as they cool (darker waffles will be more crispy).

Crepes!

Last weekend's breakfast - banana crepes with maple syrup

We've stopped eating out as much this year, particularly for brunch. Last year we would have brunch at a cafe almost every weekend, while this year we have been very good and have cut it down to once or twice a month.

During the weekend I try and make something more interesting than toast or cereal, and one thing I've been making a lot recently is crepes. I love that they're pretty quick to prepare and cook.




I use this basic crepe recipe from taste.com.au and if I make savoury crepes (ham and cheese!) I just leave out the sugar. The recipe is supposed to make twelve crepes, but the most I've ever managed to get out of a batch is six. I obviously need to practice my crepe making technique to get them thinner, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with them!

Waffles with cinnamon poached pears

Mhmmmm maple syrup...

We had an indulgent breakfast on Sunday. I should've let us sleep in later to make it super indulgent. Instead, I made us get up early so I could make waffles!

Unlike the last time I made waffles, I used a recipe that had baking powder instead of yeast. It was quick, easy, and actually pretty good! I don't think I'll bother with a yeast batter again, not with this particular waffle maker.

I googled for a recipe that used baking powder, and settled on this one. The only thing that I did differently was to add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon to my batter.

The waffles were quite light, and also a bit sensitive to being overcooked. They were best when they were golden and not too well done. They weren't very sweet, but it was perfect with icing sugar and maple syrup.

I served the waffles with half a poached pear. I had a lonely corella pear sitting around that I knew I wasn't going to eat. Rather than waste it, I poached it in a sugar syrup with a cinnamon quill and a couple of pieces of lemon peel. Below is the recipe that I used - increase the amount of sugar and water if making more than one pear.

If a breakfast like this isn't worth getting out of bed for, I don't know what is.


Thanks to Alastair for being my patient syrup pourer. :)

Cinnamon poached pear

1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup water
1 cinnamon quill
2 pieces of lemon peel
1 large pear, peeled and cut in half

Mix together the sugar and water in a saucepan, and place on to a low heat.

Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Add the cinnamon quill, lemon peel and pear.

Simmer until the pear is soft and tender (about 10 minutes). Turn the pear over half way through if it isn't fully submerged.

Coconut pancakes with bananas in palm sugar syrup

I asked Alastair what he wanted for brunch on Sunday. I had two possible dishes in mind, one involving baked eggs and the other pancakes. I gave him an option of savoury or sweet.

He choose sweet - pancakes it was!

Coconut pancakes with bananas in palm sugar syrup

Adapted from a couple of recipes seen on internets

Makes 6 medium-small pancakes (enough for 2 people)

For the pancakes

135g flour
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons caster sugar
4 tablespoons shredded coconut
130ml milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons melted butter

For the bananas

70 grams palm sugar
50 ml water
2 medium bananas, peeled and sliced

Mix together the flour, salt, sugar and coconut. Whisk in the milk, egg and melted butter until it all comes together.

Heat a frying pan on medium heat, melt some butter or a touch of oil. Add 1/4 cup of batter. When you start to see bubbles appearing on the surface, flip the pancake over and cook the other side for 1-2 minutes or until golden. Make the rest of the pancakes and keep warm.

Heat the water in a small saucepan and melt the palm sugar (you may want to grate it so it melts more quickly). Simmer until it's darkened and thick, add the sliced bananas and gently toss through the syrup. Serve with the pancakes.

Belgian Waffles

When we went to Auckland, there was only one thing that I wanted to take back. My mum's waffle maker.

We bought the waffle maker over 10 years ago, and I have many fond waffle memories. I've had a look for a waffle maker here in Oz, but have only seen one that shapes them like a penguin. Wtf? So I was happy that our visit to mum and dad's meant I could finally have waffles again!

First weekend back from Auckland, and waffles was on the menu! I found a recipe on from allrecipes.com here. It contains yeast, so a fair amount of time is required - over an hour before the waffles are ready to be cooked. I prepared the batter the night so that it was all ready to go in the morning.

The waffles weren't very sweet, so they definitely needed some icing sugar or syrup. And they weren't as thick as I wanted, but I think that's the fault of my waffle maker. With all the extra effort that went into a yeast batter, I'm not entirely sure it was worthwhile. Next time I'll have to try a baking powder batter to decide whether yeast is worth the time and energy.

Oh, and the recipe made a GAZILLION waffles. (If you want to be accurate, gazillion = 15.) Alastair never eats more than me, unless he's ingesting pancakes, waffles, french toast and cake. He managed 3 and a half, but his appetite for sweet brunches is astounding and I would suggest that two is probably a more normal number to eat.

Pikelets

I should learn by now that I shouldn't cook late at night. Whenever I do, I make mistakes because I'm tired. Like the time I started a caramel slice at 9:30pm on a work night and turned the grill on instead of the oven. I didn't realise until after I had "baked" the base of the slice and had poured on the caramel. It took me a while before I figured out why the caramel was bubbling so much in the oven!

Still, pikelets are hard to screw up. Even though I made them late in the evening they turned out okay. However, the shapes were all over the place and not as round as I would've liked. Apparently if you drop the batter from the tip of the tablespoon, the pikelets will come out round. I'll have to remember it for next time!

From Donna Hay Modern Classics 2.

Combine 2 cups plain flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 cup caster (superfine) sugar in a bowl. Combine 2 eggs, 1 12/ cups milk and 70g melted butter in another bowl, then whist into the flour mixture.

Cook 1 tablespoon of the mixture over low heat in a frying pan greased with butter for 1-2 minutes. Turn and cook for another minute or until golden.

Serve the pikelets warm with lemon and sugar or cool with jam and whipped cream. Makes 40 (apparently).

Apple & Oat pancakes

Generally for brunch on the weekends I prefer something savoury, like eggs. Alastair is a fan of the sweet brunch so sometimes I indulge him and make pancakes.

In saying that though, if I had to pick one pancake recipe to make for the rest of my life - this would be it. These are my favourite pancakes ever! It's like eating apple porridge in a pancake. They're not fancy, and they're not attractive (I can never get them round because the batter is so thick!) but they taste good.

The original recipe had pecans, if you're into that, add 1/2 cup of roughly chopped pecans to the batter.

Adapted from a recipe in Australian Table July 2004.

Serves 4.

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 1/3 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/3 cup caster sugar (use less, say 1/4 cup, if you like to drown your pancakes in syrup. I prefer less sugar.)
1 cup milk (if the batter is too thick, add more)
60g butter, melted
3 apples (I like granny smiths), cored, peeled and coarsely grated

1: Combine oats and boiling water in a bowl and stand for 5 minutes. Whisk in egg.
2: Sift flour and baking power together, then mix into oat mixture with sugar.
3: Stir in milk and melted butter, followed by apples.
4: Melt some butter in non-stick frying pan on medium heat. When warm enough, add 1/4 cup measures of batter. Cook for several minutes until bubbles start to appear on top, then turn and cook the other side for several minutes until cooked. Repeat with remaining butter.
5: Serve with butter and maple syrup.