Banana Pancakes

DH just flew off to Philippines this afternoon and I'll be home alone with 3 kids and a dog. My biggest fear is, school holidays start tomorrow and I'm sure it will be havoc at home this week. I'll have to grit my teeth while waiting for his return.

I made banana pancakes for our teabreak today. The pancakes are soft but slightly mushy. If you do not like mushy food, don't bother with this recipe. Otherwise, do give it a try as it's really tasty. Even my fussy DD3 ate a piece ^-^

I had wanted to make these into waffles but decided against it in case the batter gets stucked to the iron and I'll have a hard time removing it (I've learnt my lesson the hard way). So I took out my penguin waffle maker instead since there ain't any small grooves and it'll be easier for cleaning up. I'm glad it turned out well and my kids adore them! DD3 prefers the penguin shaped pancakes too.

Banana Pancakes Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 ripe bananas, mashed

Method

1. Combine flour, white sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together egg, milk, vegetable oil and bananas.
2. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture; batter will be slightly lumpy.
3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Cook until pancakes are golden brown on both sides; serve hot.

Blueberry Cheddar Cheese Pancakes

I love Kevin's blog and I've got so many of his recipes stored under Favorites. There are simply too many recipes for me to try but my time is limited. How I wish I have 48 hours in a day... After procrastinating for 1 over week (which is relatively short as some recipes I have took me months or even years to attempt :P), I finally made these for our Sunday breakfast.

His recipe originally calls for cottage cheese but I substituted with cheddar cheese instead. I had to use more milk as I was left with only 2 eggs in my fridge.

I used 1/2 cup milk initially but the batter wasn't runny so I had to add more milk to get this consistency.

It's time to flip over when you see bubbles like this.

This recipe yields a very light and fluffy pancake. My fussy eater, dd3, actually ate 1/4 piece for breakfast! Now, that's a great achievement!

I didn't manage to get 8 pancakes but only 6 in the size of 6" - 7" pancakes. Please refer to Kevin's blog for original recipe as I've modified the recipe here to suit my needs.

Blueberry Cheddar Cheese Pancakes

(makes 8 good sized pancakes)

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup cheddar cheese

3/4 cup milk

2 eggs (lightly beaten)

2 tablespoons butter (melted, or oil)

1/2 cup blueberries (I used frozen)

Method

1. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Mix the cheese, milk, eggs and butter in another large bowl.
3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
4. Mix in the blueberries.
5. Heat a pan and melt a touch of butter in it.
6. Pour 1/4 cup of the mixture into the pan and cook until the surface starts to bubble and the bottom is golden brown, about 2-3 minutes.
7. Flip the pancake and cook the other side until the bottom is golden brown, about 1-2 minutes.

Min Jiang Kueh (Peanut Pancake)

Hugbear shared this recipe in Kitchen Capers and I've been making this for our breakfast then. After stopping for a while and trying out new recipes, I totally forgot about this until I made my red bean paste. In the past, when I cook this, I only sandwich with peanut butter, cheese or kaya, never used red bean paste before. Since I have some extra paste in the freezer, I decided to make this for our breakfast today.

This is how the batter looks like after leaving to rise in the fridge overnight.



Cook till you see the top is bubbly and set (this pic below is not set yet)



Spread desired fillings. Instead of roasted peanuts with sugar, I just juse peanut butter.

Here's one with Nutella.

And my favourite red bean paste!

I usually cook 1.5X or double the recipe for my family of 2A + 2C.

Min Jiang Kueh

Ingredients
150 g Top Flour (I replace with all purpose flour)
10 g Tapioca Flour (can replace with corn flour)
250 ml Water
2 tbsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Alkaline Water (I omit)
1/2 tsp Yeast

Method

1. Mix all ingredients and leave to rise for 2 hours. (I leave mine in the fridge overnight)
2. Lightly oil a flat frying pan. Pour some of the flour mixture into the frying pan and swirl the pan to coat it evenly.
3. Use small fire to cook until the bottom is golden brown; Sprinkle the filling on the pancake and fold it into half.
4. Cut into small pieces to serve.

Dorayaki

I finally made my very own red bean paste! I've always love red bean paste but commercially bought ones are way too sweet for me. Just one bite and I feel as if my teeth could fall off anytime!

I soaked the red beans overnight till it plumped up in size and cook them in my AMC pots for a mere 30 mins. Drain, add sugar and a pinch of salt, continue to cook. Cook till mixture dries up and become paste-like. Unfortunately the paste got too dry as I was multi-tasking (feeding medicine to my children) and couldn't watch over the fire. I couldn't be bother to add more water and watch over the fire again so I just left it as it is. The original recipe calls for the usage of a blender but I skipped that and mashed it with a big spatula instead as I prefer my paste with a slightly coarse texture.

Dorayaki is one of DH's favourite snack. Not just the father alone, the 2 elder kiddos like sweet snacks too. When I saw this recipe here, I told myself I must make it one day. Commercially bought ones are just too sweet, I can always reduce sugar accordingly for homemade ones :)


We had these for breakfast today but the paste kept falling apart. There are some leftover red bean paste so I stored them in the freezer. I'm thinking if I could salvage them by adding more water to it and zap it in the microwave. Planning to make Min Jiang Kueh for breakfast tomorrow, will update again if I do make it.

Red Bean Paste
Ingredients
150g Red beans
110g Sugar (I use 60g)
A dash of Salt

Method

1. Wash the beans, cover the cold water, and soak overnight. Drain beans and discard water. Place beans in a saucepan, add cold water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 1 hour, or until very soft. Monitor the pan to make sure water doesn't dry up.
2. Place the beans in a food processor and process until smooth (or if you like you can process only to break it up). In a medium saucepan (preferably non-stick) add the bean paste, add the sugar. Cook, stirring until the mixture is dry.

Dorayaki
Ingredients
120 g Cake flour (sifted)
2 Eggs
100 g Sugar (I use 60g)
1 tbsp Honey
50 ml Water
Oil for frying (I omit since I'm using a non-stick pan)
360 g Sweetened red bean paste

Method

1. Beat the egg and sugar until thick and light in color and add the honey, beat to combine.
2. Mix the water, whisk to combine follow by the flour and whisk to combine.
3. Tap the bowl to release some air from the batter, cover with cloth and let the batter rest for 30 minutes.
4. Stir the batter lightly to loosen it.
5. Fry the pancake over low heat, when the pancake has bubble all over, flip the pancake. And fry the other side until golden.
6. Place the pancake on the wire rack until finish with all the batter.
7. Spread the red bean paste on one pancake cover it with another to make a sandwich.

Fun Shaped Pancakes

Using the same buttermilk pancake recipe, I attempted something fun. I really enjoy seeing my children devouring my cooks/bakes. All time and efforts spent are definitely worth it.

DS2 asked for a tree and DD1 asked for a heart shape pancake. These are my best efforts though they aint perfect.


Wanted to give DS2 a surprise by making the shape of Mickey Mouse but one of the ear went out of shape :P

Another Mickey Mouse attempt but end up it looks more like a bear, so bear it shall be hahaha.

Here's another failed Mickey Mouse attempt. To salvage it, I managed to change it into a pear :)

Doughnuts

A few years ago, I bought a Penguin Waffle Maker by Morries. I don't have any fool-proof recipe then but thought the waffle will be well-liked by my kids so I just bought it.

When I was surfing Aunty Yochana's blog, I chanced upon her mini doughnut recipe. She uses an electric doughnut maker. I don't own one and I don't intend to get one. I thought the waffle maker might come in handy and gave it a try.


I can't seem to be able to fill the waffle maker with the right amount of batter. It's either too much or too little. When it's too much, the batter overflows while cooking. When it's too little, I get deformed penguins (see those feet?).


I made another batch and this time round, I filled it up with a little bit more batter and got an almost perfect penguin. I'll say this is the first time ever I've gotten such beautiful penguins.


The inside is soft and fluffy :)



Ingredients
75 gm. Plain flour
50 gm. sugar (I use 35g sugar)
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. salt
75 ml. fresh milk
1 large egg
30 gm. or 2 tbsp. melted butter or vegetable oil
100 gm. caster sugar for coating (I omit)


Method

Preheat doughnut maker for 5 mins.

1. Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
2. Add the milk, egg and oil and stir till well mixed and smooth.
3. Fill each hole with 10 ml. (1 dsp.) of batter.
4. Close the lid and lock the latch.
5. Bake for 2 mins.
6. Remove cooked doughnuts and toss quickly in the caster sugar.
7. Serve.

Buttermilk Pancakes

This is not the usual flat pancakes but it's thick and fluffy. I have been using Nigella Lawson's pancake premix recipe as I can prepare the premix in advance and fridge it. But when I stumbled upon this recipe, I tried and like it alot (kids are neutral though). I personally feel that it's quite similar to MacDonald's Hotcakes, which is what I like.

My bottle of maple syrup just expired so I replaced it with 2 TBSP of cooking honey instead as I was worried it may be too sweet. I was right about the sweetness as 2 TBSP honey is still too sweet for us.

I can't remember where I've copied this recipe from so if you know the source, pls let me know so I can credit the originator.

Buttermilk Pancakes

Ingredients
2 cups Self-raising Flour
1 egg
1-1/2 cups Buttermilk (I replaced with 1 1/2 cup milk and 1 1/2 TBSP lemon juice, let it stand for 10 mins before using)
2 tbsp Sugar
pinch of salt

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients together to form batter.
2. Grease non-stick pan with butter/oil and using a ring mould, pour 2 tbsps of batter into the ring. Cook both sides. If not using a ring, try to use a small pan, so that the batter will not spread and pancake becomes flat at the sides.
3. Serve with apple & raisins maple syrup and some butter.

Topping

Ingredients

2 large apples
3 tbsp maple syrup
45g raisins


Method

1. Bring to boil the apples and syrup till apples are softened. Add in raisins. Set aside.