Weekend Cooking: Tatiana's Buttermilk Pancakes with Grated Apple

This week's Weekend Cooking comes from my newly acquired Tatiana's Table by Paullina Simons.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this title this is a companion piece to The Bronze Horseman Trilogy.  Food is a very important aspect of this book series and Paullina Simons has included many of the recipes of dishes mentioned in this unique cookbook.  She also pairs excerpts from the books with the recipes so you know the context they came from.

I have never encountered a recipe book based on historical fiction novel so I was very excited to find this one.

This week we made Tatiana's Buttermilk Pancakes with Grated Apple.

Tatiana's Buttermilk Pancakes with Grated Apple
4 Servings

Ingredients:
1 egg yolk and 2 egg whites
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. butter, melted and cooled, plus some for greasing
2 cups buttermilk
2 cups flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract or fresh lemon juice
1 apple (Granny Smith or Cortland work best)
Maple syrup for serving

Directions:
1) In a bowl, beat the egg yolk with the sugar and the salt.  Add butter and then alternate amounts of buttermilk and flour.
2) Grate one apple, mix with the buttermilk mixture.  Add vanilla or lemon juice.
3) In a medium bowl, whip the egg whites until fluffy (like making meringue) and fold carefully into the batter.
4) Preheat griddle and grease with butter or cooking spray.  Drop small amounts of batter onto the pan leaving 2 inches of space between each.  Cook about 1 minute on the first side and 30 seconds on the other side.
5) Place pancakes in the oven at a low temperature (approx. 200 degrees) while cooking the rest of the pancakes to keep warm.

I have never in my life made pancakes from scratch, it is usually just add water to the complete mix and you are good to go, so this took a lot more time, but the outcome was very good.  They were not as fluffy as regular pancakes, but were more moist.  My boyfriend compares them to a thicker version of a crepe.  I finely diced the apple (I used Cortland) rather than grated it because the last time I grated an apple in pancakes it was completely overwhelmed by the batter.  I also elected to use the vanilla rather than the lemon juice.  There was already a slightly bitterness from the buttermilk and I think the lemon might have made them too bitter.  The recipe got thumbs up all around.


Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and and food or cooking related post can participate.



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