Lemon & Poppy Seed Pancakes

image

I’ve recently turned into quite a pancake lover. Last weekend I made some Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes from my Joy the Baker cookbook, & today I made these Lemon & Poppy Seed Pancakes, coincidentally also a recipe I adapted from Joy. Maybe I’m just widening my pancake skills, what with Pancake Tuesday being a mere two Tuesdays from tomorrow. Whatever the reason, I haven’t heard a single complaint about my sudden interest in pancakes. (Obviously. Who complains about pancakes?)

A few months ago, I remember being in dire need of poppy seeds. I have no memory of what I actually needed the poppy seeds for, but there were weeks upon weeks where I hunted through every damn supermarket I came across for the little black seeds. Ach nein, there were none to be found. Eventually, The Boyf & I went up north in November & I happened to stumble across some poppy seeds by accident. Never having actually seen them in any store before, I took advantage & bought two packets. Now, here we are, pushing on four months later & I have absolutely no need of the poppy seeds whatsoever. Typical. 

image

& so these pancakes were born. They’re lemony, they’re zingy, & they have a nice little bite to them, all thanks to the poppy seeds. I ended up with a hell of a lot of pancakes, enough to feed all four adults in my house, & then have some left over. Although the poppy seeds can be seen on every centimeter of the pancakes, there’s actually only two tablespoons in the batter. (Prepare yourselves for a possible poppy seed overload in the coming weeks & months. Just sayin’.) I also used these pancakes as a way to finish off the lemon & blueberry cream cheese filling that I had left over from the Lemon & Blueberry Heart Pies, which, if I may say so, was an excellent idea. Extra lemon juice added into the cream cheese filling makes it runnier & lemonier, both good things when you dabble in pancakes. 

image

& now we talk about the photos, because I think this is possibly the happiest I’ve ever been with any photos I’ve taken for the blog. Normally I take the photos, I’m relatively happy with them, & then straight after everything is eaten I realize that I actually don’t like them at all. It’s a horrible unending circle of depression. But then today happened. I’ve been playing around with my photos lately – dark or light background, action shots or still photos, that kind of thing. Today I took a continuous stream of photos as the lemon & blueberry topping was poured onto the stack of pancakes, kind of like a video when looked back over. It. Was Awesome. I am in love. Now I can die happy. 

image

Printable Recipe

Makes 24 small pancakes (Adapted from Joy the Baker)

Ingredients 

  • 2 tablespoons of caster sugar
  • 1 ½ tablespoons of fresh lemon zest 
  • 2 cups of plain flour
  • 3 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 2 cups of milk plus 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
  • 4 tablespoons of butter, melted
  • 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds
  • butter, for frying
  • roughly 1/3 recipe of lemon & blueberry cream cheese plus 1 ½ tablespoons of lemon juice for drizzling

Method 

  1. First, ready the topping. I had roughly 1/3 of the recipe for the lemon & blueberry cream cheese left over from the hand pies. I added an extra 1 ½ tablespoons of lemon juice into the mix & stirred to make runnier. Set aside. 
  2. In a small bowl, rub together the caster sugar & the lemon zest until fragrant. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. Stir in the lemon sugar & set aside. 
  4. In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the wet ingredients until combined & pour all at once into the dry ingredients. Add the poppy seeds into the bowl & whisk to thoroughly combine. Leave to rest for 10 minutes while you heat your frying pan. 
  5. Place a pan over a medium heat & add a small knob of butter. When the butter is melted & spread all over the pan, place two tablespoons of the pancake batter into the pan. Cook the pancake until the bottom is golden brown & the top is bubbling. Flip the pancakes over & cook on the other side until also golden brown in colour. 
  6. Stack the pancakes onto a plate in a warm place to keep them warm until all cooked & ready to serve. 
  7. Serve drizzled with the lemon & blueberry cream cheese. 


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *