Throwback to that time when I managed to smash a pint of strawberries to a pulp on the walk home. Or more informatively, to that time when I made pancakes with strawberry puree mixed into the batter.
I made these with fresh strawberries in the springtime. I’m sure these’d work well with a puree made from frozen, defrosted strawberries for a cozy, wintertime brunch. In fact that seems to be the best use of frozen strawberries outside of ice cream.
I had a pint of strawberries that got really smashed up on the walk home (oops). I salvaged about half the pint and macerated them with balsamic vinegar and sugar and served them on a toasted spelt croissant spread with some vanilla mascarpone. Yum! The other half the pint was good for nothing but purée. I am currently without an ice cream maker, so there was no point in saving it for sorbet. Berry sauce would have been nice, but no fun. So I figured something with the berry purée in the batter (kind of like the way you can use apple sauce instead of oil with boxed cake mixes). What to do? Pancakes!
- 1 3/4 cups AP flour
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- Pinch salt
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/4 cups milk
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Scant 1/2 pint strawberries, puréed (it will make about 1/2 cup purée)
- In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
- In a second bowl, beat the eggs, milk, vanilla, and strawberry purée together.
- Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until it forms a thick batter.
- Let the batter sit for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat and butter a frying pan or griddle.
- Ladle out about a 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan, making 1 or 2 pancakes at a time.
- Cook for about 2 minutes, until the underside is golden brown and the bubbles break the surface of the pancakes.
- If you want to add more fruit or chocolate chips (I recommend chocolate chips!) drop them on the surface of the pancakes now, before you flip them.
- Flip and cook the flip side for about a minute, until golden.
- If you aren’t serving right away, put the finished pancakes on a foil lined pan in a warm oven.
- Repeat, buttering the pan as needed.
- Serve with real maple syrup.