Oven Pancakes with Fruit Compote

I seem to be on a bit of a breakfast kick lately. Not sure why, except that breakfast is one of the most awesome meals of the day! I mentioned this recipe a few days ago, and now that we're here in snowy Colorado and I had some extra time on my hands, I decided to try it out, compliments again of Betty Crocker.

The recipe said it served 2-4 people, but I'm pretty sure it would only serve four small children. I doubled it for three people and baked them in two 6x6 glass containers instead of a pie pan. The only other thing I changed about the recipe was that I sprayed the pans with Pam and only melted a tablespoon of butter in each one, just to reduce the unhealthiness factor a bit. I thought they still tasted delicious! Reminded me a bit of a baked crepe.

Puffy pancake in all its finished glory!

I made a yummy cinnamon apple fruit compote to put on top, which hubby and I both agreed was a suitable replacement for syrup. Get the pancake batter in the oven and then start on the fruit.

Fruit Compote:

2 apples
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 sugar
1 1/2 cups water

Chop the apples into small pieces. You can peel them, but I never do. Put your sugar, water and cinnamon in a sauce pan, stir it all together and cooking on high, let it come to a slow boil. Dump in the apples, stir it all together, and cover. Keep it at medium high and stir it every few minutes- it should be pretty bubbly the whole time. Cook until the apples are relatively soft. It took a little over 20 minutes for my fruit to be done, which timed very nicely with the pancakes coming out of the oven.

Uncooked pancake batter. You can see how buttery it is!

Heart Shaped Eggs...One Day Late

Happy Late Day of Love! Hubby was gone yesterday morning for work, so I made him heart shaped eggs this morning instead. Was a pretty easy breakfast. Just warmed up the pan, put in my heart shaped cookie cutter, cracked the egg in, put some seasonings on top, and waited for it to fry. Took longer than usual for it to be ready to flip since the egg was contained within the heart shape, probably 4 minutes?

Since the pan was well greased, I was able to flip it over pretty easily. I let it cook for another 2-3 minutes and then I gently ran a butter knife around the cookie cutter so I could remove it. Would have been a much faster process if I had had two cookie cutters! Since Valentine's Day is already over, these would also be great as a sweet anniversary breakfast.

We are leaving on vacation today for a ski trip, but I will try to post once or twice while I am gone. =)

Easy Pancake Recipe

When we woke up this morning I was craving some nice fluffy pancakes, IHOP style, but was too lazy to go out. So my awesome husband whipped these up from the Betty Crocker cookbook. Seriously, go try this out before you go Google another pancake recipe some Saturday.

Turns out the secret to fluffy pancakes (guess I'm really stupid here) is whipping the egg with a mixer before adding the other ingredients. Normally I just give my egg a half-hearted scramble with a fork, but the extra effort is seriously worth it. Stay posted for pancake series part II- we are going to give Betty's puffy oven pancakes a try when we are on vacation in CO this week!