A big container of fresh blueberries sitting on the counter is just asking to be used in a recipe. I like blueberries in all kinds of desserts and baked goods, but I have to admit that breakfast foods usually spring to mind when I think about using them. Blueberry muffins, coffee cakes and pancakes are all classics in my book - so for a little bit of a change while staying in the breakfast mindset, I opted to make some Fresh Blueberry Waffles.

These light, buttermilk waffles have fresh blueberries cooked right into them. They are tender and moist, with a good buttery flavor to them that sets off the blueberries very well. They are not very sweet on their own, despite the inclusion of the berries, which means that you can indulge yourself with as much maple syrup as you like when you sit down to enjoy a big plateful. Stick with fresh blueberries if you can, because frozen berries will add a lot of extra moisture to your waffles and could make them a bit too moist in the center as they defrost during cooking.

The only potential drawback to using whole, fresh berries is that they can - and will - pop while your waffle is cooking. A good, thick batter will definitely help to contain them, but I would opt for using a regular waffle iron (shallow squares) rather than a Belgian-style waffle iron with big, deep squares that leave you with shallow walls that won’t hold the berries together quite as well. Also, make sure that your waffle iron is well-greased so that any popped berries will still release cleanly with the rest of the waffle when it is ready.

These freeze well and can be reheated by defrosting them in the microwave, then putting them in a 350F oven for about 5 minutes to let them crisp up again.
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I think that holidays like Valentine’s Day always deserve a special breakfast. Why not start off the day on a good note? Of course, I could say the same thing about just about every morning, because I tend to think that every day should start out on just as good a note as the holidays. These pancakes are perfect for surprising your loved one - holiday or not. They’re heart-shaped Red Velvet Pancakes.

I took the inspiration for the pancakes from classic red velvet cake, which is typically flavored with a little bit of cocoa powder and a generous amount of buttermilk. In the cake, the cocoa flavor is noticeable, but there isn’t enough to really give the cake a chocolaty feel. It primarily lends some dark color to the cake (red in theory, as cocoa powder reacts with baking soda and takes a reddish tinge as a result). The real color of these pancakes, however, comes from food coloring just as the red color of a red velvet cake does. The more food coloring you use, the redder your pancakes will be. Take the amount given below as a guideline and color to your own specifications.

The pancakes are not too sweet because they’re meant to be topped with lots of syrup and maybe some whipped cream. You can definitely get the cocoa notes from them, as well as the rich flavor of buttermilk. They’re a nice change - both in taste and appearance - from regular pancakes. You can use a spoon to spread the batter into heart shapes or use a pastry bag to draw them. You can also place a heart-shaped cookie cutter on the hot pan and pour the batter right into it.

Serve with syrup, whipped cream, berries and a big kiss, too.

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Panettone is a popular cake around Christmas time, but what to do with a leftover loaf when the holidays are over? The easiest answer is slice it up and make french toast. You can do this with the big loaves and the miniature loaves, and it might be worth making a trip to the store to get a post-holiday panettone just to serve it up for breakfast. I would opt for the large loaves if you want to serve a crowd and get a miniature one (which is what I used for the picture above) if you just want to indulge yourself.

Slice the bread to the thickness of regular sandwich bread, the prepare the egg and milk mixture as you would for ordinary french toast. Panettone has a sweet, buttery flavor and is studded with raisins, currants, candied citrus and other dried fruits. I didn’t add any sweetener to the egg and milk mixture in this recipe because the panettone is so flavorful on its own. It’s a bit like using cinnamon-swirl bread, where you want to be able to savor the flavors in the bread because they’re great to start out with.

Serve this with maple syrup or honey and you can enjoy a bit of the holidays long after the holidays have past.

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The dough used in danishes is similar to the dough used in croissants. It is a very flaky, buttery yeast dough that takes more than a little bit of time and patience to put together. Sometimes it’s nice to dawdle over a batch of pastry on a lazy weekend morning, but other times it’s nice to get something delicious onto your plate a little more quickly. One solution is to run to the local bakery and pick up some danishes, but another is to make a quick batch of danish using puff pastry instead of a more traditional danish dough. Puff pastry is easy to work with and produces a crisp, flaky delicious danish - especially considering that it takes so little time to make a batch.

The secret to making these danishes so good is the cream cheese filling inside. It is made with cream cheese and white chocolate. The white chocolate gives it a rich, creamy feel and just the right amount of sweetness. A good quality white chocolate (not white baking chips) will have notes of milk and vanilla in it, which will help round out the flavor of the cream cheese. The cream is delicious on its own and bakes very well, staying tender and moist within its crisp puff pastry shell.

Now, if you’re a purist, you could keep the cream cheese danish filling plain and serve the pastries that way. I used mixture of raspberry and peach preserves to sweeten them up a little more. Any flavor of jam will work here, but thicker jams and preserves will tend to spread less during baking and produce a slightly prettier danish in the end. This is another good example of a recipe that you can use as a jumping off point for creating your own variations. The 1,2,3 Puff! Contest that Pepperidge Farm is holding is still accepting entries and a mouthwatering Danish - or similarly enticing pastry - sounds like it would have a great chance of being a prize winner. The grand prize is an all-expenses paid trip to New York (along with some foodie bonuses, like a tour of NYC pastry shops and bakeries!), but that’s just the bonus of experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.

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It has been a long time since I made a batch of gingerbread pancakes, and an even longer time since I posted about them! I am always tweaking pancake recipes and, while the first batch from a few years ago is still good, a couple of changes make them even better.  Gingerbread really needs to have some molasses to give it a good gingerbread flavor, but it also needs some spices to give it that warmth that we expect from gingerbread.

I kept these pancakes simple, with just cinnamon, ground ginger and some nutmeg in the batter. Freshly ground nutmeg is always the most flavorful, but preground will work if you have none fresh. My favorite part - aside from the maple syrup that I poured all over these - is the chopped candied ginger (Ginger People’s Ginger Chips work perfectly here) that is mixed into the pancake batter. They really add a nice spicy sweetness and are a pleasant surprise when your bite into a little piece! I sprinkled some extra on top of the pancakes to mix in with the maple syrup, as well.

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I suspect that vampires aren’t big breakfast-eaters. They’re probably more of the midnight snack type. This is precisely why I was inspired, as I was looking for a late-night snack during an evening of pre-Halloween scary movie watching, to make these vampire pancakes. These are buttermilk pancakes made with a red, raspberry jam filling that oozes out when you cut in for a bite.

The pancakes are quite easy to make. You start with a fairly standard pancake batter with a little bit of vanilla extract thrown in and pour some onto a preheated griddle. Next, you add a dollop of raspberry (or other red-colored) jam to the center of the pancake as it cooks. It’s a good idea to try and spread out the jam as you place it on the pancake, even putting several little dollops. At this stage, the pancake batter is too delicate to stand up to being spread with jam, and it’s really nice if the jam fills up as much of the pancake as possible. Top the jam with some more batter to cover it completely and cook as you would a regular pancake.

When the pancakes were fresh off the griddle and the jam was still warm, they were moist and tender, with a nice ooze to the filling.  You can taste the vanilla and buttermilk in the pancakes alongside the jam. These pancakes were sweet enough that they didn’t need any additional syrup or toppings before serving, but whipped cream might be a nice touch if you want to serve a little on the side.

I used the same technique that I’ve used on my Vampire Cupcakes and Vampire Cookies to add bite marks to these pancakes before serving. I’m sure that any vampires out there would approve, even if they might prefer a different flavor of filling for their portion.

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