Pancakes!

Pancakes are my absolute favorite thing to eat for breakfast. I make them all the time. And this week I made two new variations. Above, I made blueberry pecan pancakes, a pretty standard fare for us. But the new part is that I used some of my leftover whey from cheesemaking in the batter as a substitute for buttermilk. It worked great! I have stored some of the whey in the freezer so I can try using it more in baked goods. Oh, also in the above photo, I want to point out my most recent kitchen acquisition, a crepe pan, that we were able to snag on super duper clearance. It's a fantastic pan, and yes, I have made crepes with it already; crepes that turned out better than any I have made before... but this is a posting about pancakes. So I will refocus.

I topped the blueberry pancakes with some cinnamon-spiced apples sauteed in butter and maple syrup. Nice! I cannot share my recipe for pancakes, as DH highly objects. Pancakes are serious business at my house!!! So I will refer you to this recipe that Ana posted, as it is quite similar.

Above is a photo of the whey I have poured from the curds. The whey is in the square plastic bowl in the sink, and it is yellowish in color. This is to clarify that I am talking about fresh whey, not the powdered whey that can be purchased.

And above is the other new pancake variation I tried this week, to celebrate my batch of freshly made ricotta cheese: Lemon Ricotta Panckaes! They are super! They have a very fluffy consistency, and because they have FIVE, yes five eggs, they are almost a mix of omelette and pancake, pretty cool! For splendid photos of how glorious these pancakes can look, see Aimee's photos and recipe here.