Cherry Puff Pancake
Ingredients
3 eggs
½ cup nonfat or 1% milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 dash of cinnamon
2 Tablespoons margarine or butter
2 cups halved, pitted sweet cherries, fresh or frozen, thawed and drained
¼ cup sliced almonds (optional)
Directions
1. Wash hands with soap and water.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
3. In a medium bowl or blender, beat the eggs, milk and vanilla together until well blended.
4. Mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon together. Add to the liquid ingredients and mix until there are no lumps.
5. Put margarine or butter in a 10- or 11-inch oven proof skillet or a 2 1/2- to 3-quart baking dish. Place the skillet or dish in the hot oven until the margarine or butter is melted and bubbly. Remove from the oven. Quickly spread the cherries across the bottom of the hot skillet or dish.
6. Pour the batter over the cherries and sprinkle with almond slices, if using.
7. Return to the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the edges are browned and the pufffs in the middle are golden. Cool slightly before cutting into 4 pieces. The center puffs will flatten during cooling.
8. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours.
Comment
This is a great recipe! The almonds got nice and toasted and the delicious smell of baked goods with vanilla, cinnamon, and fruit caught the attention of everyone in the room I was cooking in. A few things that I learned from my first trial:
- The whole recipe fits into one toaster oven drip tray.
- Use sweet cherries, not pie cherries: Pie cherries were too tart and not sweet enough.
- Thaw cherries lightly and drain if there is liquid: I thawed the cherries in the oven while it was heating up. They ended up warming to the point of releasing a lot of juice. I didn’t dump the juice because I wanted to save the flavor, but this made the pancakes too soft and difficult to serve. Next time I will thaw the cherries less or in a different way to create less juice. If there is juice I will not use it in the recipe.
- A 20 minute cooking time may be too long: I baked the pancake for 20-25 min and the bottom stuck to the pan. Next time I will try a cooking time of 15 minutes.
I also really like this recipe! I made it earlier this year with frozen cherries (thawed and drained) and also with canned peaches (drained and cut), but I just made it again this morning with fresh pitted sweet cherries since they are in season. Wow, this is easy and tasty. I love that it is a pancake that is plenty sweet without much added sugar per serving. Watching the puff in the oven is fun, even though it drops after coming out of the oven. Will likely be making this again with blueberries. Adding a spoonful of plain yogurt is perfect.