Why brunch when you can brinner?

I went back to basics (in a sense) and made a dish I’m very familiar with: Pancakes. My thought was that even though the steps of the recipe would be familiar, the recipe itself is new, and since I can make buttermilk pancakes in my sleep (aka before I’ve had a drop of coffee), I figured this recipe might easily be within my wheelhouse of “whipping up” on a weeknight.

Plus, who wouldn’t want to eat pancakes for dinner.

SOUR CREAM PANCAKES WITH ROASTED BLUEBERRIES

From SMALL VICTORIES by Julia Turshen

Ingredients: If you already have most baking staples in your house like I do (flour, baking soda, etc) all you need is blueberries.

The recipe calls for sour cream in the title, but one of the variations in the footnotes is the easy swap for yogurt (which was a great use of the extra yogurt from this weekend’s breakfast).

First step is to put blueberries and brown sugar in a pan to roast.

Next is the familiar steps required for pancake preparation: wet ingredients in one bowl, dry ingredients in another.

Leave the batter lumpy; that’s what helps it rise the most. Pour the batter in half-cup-ish-sized dollops onto a buttery griddle and wait patiently.

Don’t forget to check the blueberry sauce! Give it a stir and put back in the oven to roast some more.

Flip the pancakes. This is the best part: they should puff up and make the pancakes super fluffy. Plus you get a satisfying sizzle when they hit the griddle.

Both pancakes and sauce were close to done at the same time, which made it really easy to assemble! Pancakes on plate, butter on pancakes, sauce on top.

Since the pancakes are butter-free ingredient-wise (against my natural instinct of butter-in-everything-all-the-time), I was hoping for a little buttery-crispiness from the griddle and a soft, fluffy center. While I got the fluffiness I was hoping for, I was missing the crispy edges on my plate. The consistency of the pancakes ended up being a little cake-ier than I would have preferred (slightly more “Cake” than “Pan”), but that could be a feature for those who prefer their pancakes on the cakey side.

The blueberry sauce was SUPER good and super easy. The roasting of the berries added an extra layer of intensity that made this sauce really jammy and unctuous without using the traditional additives that come with a stovetop sauce recipe.

For those who know my pancake-eating style (hot off the griddle and drowned in maple syrup), you’ll be shocked to hear I didn’t eat these pancakes with maple syrup (blasphemy, I know)! They were balanced and delicious as directed.

N: I think the pancakes were pretty solid. We used yogurt this time, but I wonder if using sour cream would make it different.

Final thoughts: I would try this recipe again to finish off extra yogurt or sour cream, but I might stick to my famous buttermilk pancakes for now and top with the blueberry sauce.