Walking through the grocery store, I see a lot of berries out already and they are actually sweet! So I bought a pack of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, whipped up some sweetened whipped cream and thought about just plunging the berries into a cup of my fresh whipped cream and preview a taste of summer. Then I remembered these delicious oven pancakes from Ina Garten’s book so I told myself I could wait and enjoy the berries, whipped cream AND delicious puffed pancakes.. I like to take pictures of my favorite recipes on my phone so I have easy access to them without having to go through my stack of cookbooks.
The recipe calls for 3 eggs at room temperature. Really? REALLY? You’re talking about a breakfast dish here… My daughter is usually up at 7am, then my baby, then my son, and they’re all up before 8am. So anyways, I really don’t plan ahead and think to run upstairs and pull out 3 eggs so it can sit at room temperature while I direct morning traffic. SO what to do? Just place the eggs into a bowl of warm water and you’ll have room temperature eggs while you get all the other ingredients measured and ready. YES! So there, you have no excuse to NOT make these incredible pancakes that will be all ready at the same time and not one-pancake-out-of-the-pan at a time.
I use jumbo muffin pans to bake them into cute little individual servings but my husband likes them baked in a huge pie pan so he can “fill ‘er up”. Whatever floats your boat. You can use little gratin dishes as well. The muffin tins bake faster and works just as well. When you add the batter into the muffin cups, only add about 1.5-2 TBS, enough to coat (about 1/4 inch deep?) the bottom of the cup, so you get a nice cup shape for your berries and cream.
Oven Pancakes (adapted by Ina Garten)
2 TBS unsalted butter, melted plus more for pan
3 large eggs, room temperature
½ cup milk
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 1 orange
¼ tsp salt
Serve with seasonal berries or fruits, sweetened whipped cream, and/or maple syrup. You can play around with these. They are a good base for any fruit really.
Preheat oven to 425 F
Zest the orange into your measured milk.
Place the eggs in a medium bowl and whisk until well mixed. Add the milk and combine, then add the milk with orange zest, flour, vanilla, melted butter, and salt. Whisk until it’s not too lumpy. It will still be a little lumpy and that’s okay.
Add about ½ a pat of butter into each muffin cup and place it in the hot oven for about 1-2 mins, until it’s hot and bubbly. Immediately add the batter into each muffin cup and bake for about 10 mins, until it’s puffed and golden brown. Don’t worry if it looks really big, it will deflate a lot when you remove it from the oven.
Fill it with your whipped cream and berries and dust with powdered sugar if desired. OR come up with your own toppings.
P.S. If you noticed my “muffin” pans look like it has a dome in the center, you’re right. You’re very observant. I used my muffin pan to freeze homemade baby food last night. I freeze them in the pan, pop them out and place them into a freezer ziplock once they’re frozen discs. That way I have perfect portions that I just need to pull one “disc” out of the freezer and defrost. SO, I had to substitute it with another pan that has a dome for baking cakes that you place toppings onto. They work just fine, but some of my pancakes ended up with holes. ha ha.
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