Pancakes

No, really, this post is about pancakes. I tried an experiment this morning, and it turned out well, so here's the recipe:

Oatmeal-Apple-Raisin pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1/2 cup dry rolled oats
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup apple sauce
1 cup (or so) milk
1 egg
1 tbs brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
dash of cinnamon

Directions
Mix dry ingredients well, making sure the brown sugar is mixed in. Make a well in the middle, whisk up the egg. Add the apple sauce. Mix. Slowly add the 1 cup of the milk, while stirring. Add more to obtain proper consistency.

Stir as you pour or dip the batter, since the raisins and oatmeal may drop toward the bottom. Cook in a small quantity of butter or oil over medium heat. Flip pancakes when the popped bubbles remain open. Cook second side until lightly browned.

Baking improvements

I have not yet achieved mastery of baking, but recently dedicated myself to improving this lack. One motivator was the fact that we fell in love with the bread we could purchase daily and cheaply in Central Europe during our year abroad. In Paradise, we were fortunate to find a wonderful bakery that provided us with "multigrain basket" bread, a rather good approximation. But there is nothing of the sort here in the Rocket City area. Below is my most recent attempt at a sourdough multigrain loaf. The size, shape, flavor and texture are closer to my aim, but still not quite right.


Actually, the pictured loaf was a bit big. We were used to purchasing 1 kilo loaves in Europe (often half, or quarter loaves). This one weighed in at 1.6 kilos! I've got a sourdough rye loaf rising at the moment, a smaller one. We'll see how that turns out. The difficulty is in making a free-form loaf that doesn't fall flat. It needs enough density to hold its shape without becoming a brick.

And, below, this morning's crop of apple-banana-mango pancakes (served with Articulate's homemade mango and strawberry jam, of course). Don't worry, we had ample leftovers to put away.


Again, this is a not-quite-perfect creation. The boys adore pancakes. Part of my aim is to get more fruit into #1. While #2, at 2 years old, is still content to eat just about anything, #1, at 4;11, attaches himself to certain rather arbitrary refusals. He loves mangoes, but won't touch apples or bananas these days (unless they're disguised). I've taken to blending up the fruit and mixing it in with the batter. I've created some delicious but rather mushy results, realizing that the proportions are not quite right. Today's included about 1/2 cup each of chopped apples, mangoes, and bananas (blended it comes to just over 1 cup total), two eggs, 3 cups of flour, 2-1/2 cups of milk, 2 tbs. baking powder, and 1/4 tsp. of salt. Good, but I still want to do better. I could probably reduce the baking powder to 1.5 or even 1 tbs. But I'm not sure what other adjustments to make. Any thoughts?