The roar of the coffee grinder is a treasured sound in my house. It means it is Saturday morning, the only day of the week Mark and I have breakfast together. With both of us attending school and working full time breakfast is usually a smoothie that I drink on a crammed subway car on the way to school while trying to balance myself from falling over. Oh city living is not nearly as glamorous as I once thought but I am thankful for coffee.
Mark doesn’t care for typical breakfast foods but he sure does love pancakes. I have a Whole-Wheat Blueberry Pancakes recipe that are kid approved but I wanted a recipe that was a touch more grown up. Pulse some almonds and add some orange zest with a touch of liquor makes this typical diner breakfast elegant.
This Sunday was a special because Mark came home from France! He told me all about his trip over breakfast and coffee. One night he was doing a sound check for the Hennessy Music Festival in Cognac and guess who was also doing their sound check on a different stage? Allen Stone!
If you have never heard of his music before go and youtube it now, Unaware and his cover of Marcy Playground’s Sex and Candy are my favourties. Mark and I are big fans and are going to see him play at The Phoenix in October. He apparently fangirl-ed hard for him and his band and had no shame in telling me so. I am still sort of jealous because I was in my dank and dark dungeon of a classroom doing quadratic functions for academic upgrading while he partied with rock stars in Cognac, France. Sighhh but Mark promises me that we will return to Europe soon enough. In the meantime, summer peaches will occupy my thoughts.
Needless to say, I am so glad he is home and I think he is as well despite having a life changing experience in France. Thankfully he brought back some goodies for me to indulge in. Cheers to lazy Saturday, pancake breakfast and of course some Cognac.
- 2/3 cup raw cashews, soaked for 2-8 hours
- 2 tablespoons Amaretto liquor
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 7 tablespoons water
- Pinch of salt
- 3 ripe peaches
- 1/3 cup pure maple syrup
- ¼ cup water
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Pinch of nutmeg
- Pinch of salt
- 2 cups unsweetened almond milk
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar or fresh lemon juice
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoons sorghum flour
- ½ cup oat flour
- ½ cup almond meal (see note)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
- 1 chia egg (1 tbsp chia seeds + 3 tbsp water)
- 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Zest of an orange, finely grated on a microplane
- Place all the ingredients in a high power blender and blend until smooth.
- Cut a small X in the bottom on the peach and place in boiling water for about 4-5 minutes depending on how ripe the peach is. The riper the peach the less time it needs in the boiling water.
- With a slotted spoon carefully remove peach from pot and plunge in ice bath.
- When cool enough to handle, gently peel off the skin. It should slip right off.
- Cut the peach to remove the stone and dice into large pieces.
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the diced peaches and the rest of the ingredients. Allow the mixture to come to a boil and turn the heat down to a gentle simmer for 5-7 minutes. You still want the mixture to be chunky.
- Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Set a wire rack on top of a baking sheet and place on the oven rack.
- Whisk milk and vinegar (or lemon juice) together in a medium bowl; set aside to thicken the milk.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, powder, soda and salt until combined. Form a well in the middle of the mixture.
- In the medium bowl with the milk, add the chia egg, syrup and zest, whisk until combined. Pour the wet mixture into the well of the dry ingredients and whisk gently until just combined. Do not over mix! A few lumps are good.
- Heat a large non-stick(!) pan over medium heat until hot. Using a ¼-cup measure, portion the batter into the pan, creating 2 pancakes.
- Cook pancakes until bubbles on its surface appear, about 2 minutes. Flip the pancakes with a wide spatula and cook the second side for another minute or 2 minutes.
- Transfer pancakes to wire rack and repeat with remaining batter.
- Serve with warm peach compote and drizzle with Amaretto Cream.
- Feel free to omit the Amaretto but if you can it is worth the effort to add it in. Adds a touch of indulgence (also tastes great in your coffee…wink wink)
- Depending on how you store your flours, you may need to add a bit more sorghum flour to the mix to get the right consistency. Flours can act differently based on climate so if it is really humid where you are, you may need to add more. Start with the 1-cup and add more 1 tablespoon at a time until the right consistency but try not to over-mix.
- A non-stick pan is essential to this recipe since there is no oil added. However if you don’t have a non-stick, using a regular pan with oil in it works as well. It just won’t be oil free.
- Almond meal or almond flour can be purchase but if you have 3/4 cup of raw almonds around, just pulse them until they are fine. Do not (!) leave the food processor running too long because it will turn onto almond butter, while delicious not want you want for this recipe.
- Turn on some Allen Stone while making breakfast, you won’t regret it.
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