It’s Canada Day, and it’s also a long weekend. Instead of passing out and doing nothing until the fireworks start, why not start your day with some very Canadian blueberry pancakes?
This recipe is my own personal tried-and-tested variation of a family favourite pancake recipe from the old-school Canadian classic Five Roses: A Guide to Good Cooking (itself a variant of the famed Five Roses Cook Book). If you’re looking to get your paws on the original recipe, Whitecap Books has recently reprinted the cookbook. You can find it at Chapters here.
Blueberry Pancakes
1.25 cups all purpose white flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
0.5 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1.25 cups milk
0.5 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)
4 tablespoons icing sugar
Directions
1. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir to mix completely.
2. Beat egg in a smallish bowl (I use a 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup). Stir in milk and vanilla.
3. Form a well in the dry ingredients, then add the milk mixture little-by-little, stirring to incorporate. The batter should be a bit lumpy. Don’t over stir it, or it won’t rise correctly.
4. Melt the butter in a mug in the microwave. Gently stir the melted butter into the batter until mixed in.
5. In a small bowl, add two tablespoons icing sugar, then add blueberries. Shake berries around gently as if panning for gold. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of icing sugar, and continue shaking until the berries are evenly coated.
6. Gently add the sugared berries to the batter, stirring slowly to distribute evenly.
7. In a frying pan pre-heated over medium-low heat, scoop out 1/2 cup measures. You could go smaller if you want to cook more, but I find 1/2 cup of batter yields a nice lumberjack-sized pancake.
8. Cook on medium-low heat, watching for bubbles to poke through the surface of the pancake and for the edges of the pancake to start to dry. Flip pancake, and cook until golden brown. Adjust heat and cooking time as needed. Every stove is different, so be prepared to burn a few on your first go-round.
Serve with butter and REAL maple syrup.
TIPS AND TRICKS
- Don’t be alarmed if your batter turns blue-purple. This seems to happen when using frozen berries.
- During blueberry season, feel free to use fresh berries. Note that it will change your cooking times, as the temperature of your batter will be much warmer than when using frozen berries.
- Smaller berries = more even berry distribution. Larger berries = larger, more juicy blueberry taste explosions.
- I use a non-stick pan (shame!), but, if memory serves, adding a bit of butter in a non-non-stick pan seems to help keep the sticking under control.
- You get better at flipping with time. The larger the pancake, the more tricky the flip.
- If your heat is too high, you’ll cook the surface faster than the rest of the pancake, burning the outsides while leaving the inside raw and battery.
