Self-Rising Baked Pancake with Berries

If you're planning to wake Mom up with something special yet easy for Mother's Day, make this pancake for brunch. Instead of standing at the stove flipping a bunch of smaller pancakes, you stir together a simple batter, drop berries over it, and stick the pan in the oven to bake.  The pancake is moist and tender, and insanely good with the strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries -- topped with maple syrup, of course.  One of these will feed three or four people, with some bacon or scrambled eggs on the side.  If you're feeding a crowd, double the recipe and bake them in two pans at the same time.

I adapted this recipe to use self-rising flour for two reasons: I ran out of all-purpose flour, and I can't find enough uses for my self-rising flour.  I've included directions for using either in the recipe below.  I recently traveled to see my mom and won't be seeing her this Sunday, but I can't help thinking she would love this if I made it for her.  I'll have to give her a rain check.  If you're seeing your mom this Sunday, treat her to this pancake.  She'll love it.

Corn Cakes with Smoked Salmon

If you're looking for a brunch dish that's a little indulgent but not heavy, and just fancy enough for weekend guests, this is it.  I made these on Easter and just loved them, and they'd be great for treating moms on Mother's Day morning.  This savory spin on pancakes is made with cornmeal and corn, topped with slices of smoked salmon, and dolloped with light sour cream.

I also experimented with popovers recently.  These are my first ever.  Look at that pop!  This is a plain one, but I also experimented with crumbled bacon and want to play more with them.

For those of you who prefer a better corn product for the corn cakes, I found an organic yellow cornmeal made by Arrowhead Mills at my local health food store.  No luck in the supermarket organic section.  If you don't eat fish, you can substitute the smoked salmon with slices of ham, or top it with a fried egg.  The recipe is pretty easy, and if you have a large electric griddle you can make all the corn cakes at once in one batch.  That equals a little more time for weekend relaxin'.

Flour's Tortilla with Chorizo, Peppers & Potato

I've been making liberal use of my oven during the recent snowstorms and "polar vortex," the better to warm up the house. Icy, grey mornings call for a hearty breakfast or brunch like this tortilla.  Red peppers are sauteed and potatoes get browned before pouring in an egg mixture laced with Parmesan, and then the skillet is thrown in the oven to finish.  You can keep the recipe vegetarian as is, or add some chorizo like I did.  It adds a nice, salty bite.

Sprinkle on some chopped scallions and parsley for freshness, then slice into wedges.  I like that the tortilla can be served hot or at room temperature, and that you can make it a day or so in advance and reheat when serving.  Perfect if you want to get a head start before house guests arrive, or for getting one weekend brunch dish out of the way.

Making a Spanish tortilla usually involves flipping the eggs, hot skillet and all, onto a plate, and then sliding the filling back into the skillet to cook the other side.  I'm not a fan of inverting piping-hot cast iron skillets with ingredients that could still be runny, so I'm glad this recipe involves no flipping!  When the next snowfall hits, I hope this is in my oven.  It'll sustain us through lots of shoveling.  Stay warm, friends!

Boston Globe Review: Traditional Irish Breakfast

Shirley Goh/Globe Staff

Have you ever had a traditional Irish breakfast, with the sausages and soda bread, and black pudding and white pudding?  Mad Hatter Cafe in Weymouth does one.  On an aside, ever notice how many things the British and Irish call pudding?  Black pudding, white pudding, Yorkshire pudding, desserts -- and I think not one is like the creamy stuff in a cup I think of as pudding.  In the meantime, that Reuben sandwich has inspired Joe and I to mix up our St. Patrick's Day menu this year.  We usually do the corned beef and cabbage, but we're going for Reubens this year!  It is, after all, Joe's all-time favorite sandwich.  What are you making on St. Pat's?

Read the review at: http://bo.st/16ivzIz

Boston Globe Review: Eggs Benedict Eleven Ways

Photos by Shirley Goh/Globe Staff

Clockwise from top left: The Atlantic benedict has poached eggs and smoked salmon on rye with Hollandaise in a twist on the traditional; muffins; blueberry-stuffed pancakes; and bring a big appetite for the Lumberjack omelet.

This was a great place for weekend brunch.  You know how sometimes you regret eating at greasy diners or chains afterwards, thinking you could have made it better, and for less money?  This isn't that place.  Plus there's the 11 varieties of eggs Benedict.  If you're on the South Shore, visit Nikos in Weymouth.

Read the review at: http://bitly.com/TMicN5
If the subscriber pay wall locks you out, it's available at: http://bitly.com/U6w7rD

Pumpkin Waffles with Maple Butter

I love homemade waffles.  I grew up eating the kind you buy frozen, but there's no comparison with homemade.  Plus, when you have a little time on the weekends, waffles are really easy to make.  And these are pumpkin waffles.  They're spiced just like pumpkin pie, with cinnamon, ground ginger, and clove, and topped with a scoop of maple butter.

If you think that's decadent, I should tell you that the original recipe on Foodness Gracious included maple bacon butter.  Despite being a bacon lover, I decided to forgo the meat for breakfast.  And instead of using maple syrup to make the butter, I decided to try maple sugar, figuring the butter wouldn't get loose and runny the way it might when adding liquid.  Now, I actually never put butter on my waffles or pancakes, and I don't think it's needed here -- the maple sugar gets lost in the additional syrup you pour on top.  But I plan to spread this delicious butter on toast and English muffins, and it would be great on biscuits.  My other tweak is one I always use with homemade waffles, and that's to substitute half of the flour with white whole wheat flour.  Tastes just like regular waffles, and they're a little better for you.  Who's ready for brunch?

Handy tip: Freeze leftover waffles wrapped in plastic for a quick breakfast during the week.  Thaw on the counter, then heat in the toaster oven briefly.

I almost forgot: I finally made a Facebook page for my blog.  Visit it and "Like" it?  I don't have any giveaways to entice you with, but I hope to see you on that end anyway.

Boston Globe review: Pogo's

Shirley Goh/Globe Staff

For breakfast with a Portuguese flair, gut-busting portions, and dessert-inspired first meals of the day, there is Pogo's in East Bridgewater.  This place is known for its heaping platters of food, so it was funny to see the waiter's reaction when three of us ordered two entrees apiece to get a good cross-sampling of the menu!  Read my review in today's Globe South in The Boston Globe.

Read the review with all photos at BostonGlobe.com here.
If the subscriber pay wall comes up, you can still read the review at Boston.com here.

Back to Baking: Buttermilk Biscuits

So the weather cooled down a bit today, and I was eager to use my oven again. I've been grilling outside and using my ice cream maker to make more frozen yogurt, but avoiding baking because the heat just gets unbearable. This recipe is from Rose Levy Berenbaum, and I used the more reliable weight measurements.

Weight	Volume	Ingredients
3 oz	6 tbs	cold, unsalted butter
6.5 oz	1 1/4 cups	Bleached all-purpose flour
2.3 oz	2/3 cup	Cake flour
.5 oz	1 tbs	Baking powder
	1 tsp	Salt
1.3 oz	3 tbs	Sugar
1.3 oz		2 Large eggs, hard-cooked, yolks only
6.3 oz	3/4 cup	Buttermilk or heavy cream (I used buttermilk)

You'll need a baking sheet plus a cushioned baking sheet OR 2 baking sheets, one on top of the other, lined with Silpat or parchment. You'll also need a baking stone (like a pizza stone) or a baking sheet.

Cut the butter and chill it. Place the oven rack at the middle level and put the stone or baking sheet on it. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. If White Lily self-rising flour is sold in your area, you can use 10 oz OR 2 cups of that, and omit the flours, baking powder, and salt in the chart above. Add the butter, and use your fingertips to press it into the flour until you get pieces that resemble coarse meal. Press the egg yolk through a fine strainer into the flour mixture, and whisk to distribute them evenly. Stir in the buttermilk, just until the flour is moistened and the dough starts to come together. Knead it on a lightly floured counter, and roll it 3/4 inch thick.

Dip a 2 1/2-inch round biscuit cutter or cookie cutter into a dish of flour before each cut (helps it not stick) and cut through the dough, lifting without twisting for maximum rise. Knead any leftover dough scraps and roll them out, repeating the process until you've used them all up. Place them an inch apart.

Place your baking sheet(s) on the hot baking stone or baking sheet, raise the temperature to 400 degrees, and bake for 5 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 375 degrees and bake 10 to 15 minutes more or until golden (an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center should say 200 degrees). The recipe yielded 12 biscuits for me.

I have to confess I used my food processor to make the dough up to this point, instead of a pastry cutter or mushing anything by hand. It's just faster, and I whizzed the hard-boiled yolks in the food processor, too. Don't they look like lemon zest?


The recipe doesn't call for it, but I snipped in some chives from my herb box for half the biscuits. Why not?

For the other half, I mixed together a teaspoon of paprika with a dash of cayenne pepper, and kneaded some of that mixture into the dough, and use the remainder of the mixture to sprinkle on the tops.


It helps to cut your biscuits real close to each other, to minimize the necessity of re-rolling the dough.