Light and airy pancakes filled with blueberries and a light sprinkle of lemon zest throughout! Perfect when served with syrup, a little bit of butter, and a generous helping of blueberry compote! Blueberry Pancakes with a hint of Lemon are the perfect way to start your day!
Pancakes VS Waffles
So, for the longest time, there’s been the debate which is better: pancakes or waffles. Honestly, this is such a tough debate for my heart; it’s like choosing your between your children! They’re both equally delicious and I feel like they both have their place in the world. There is nothing like staying at a hotel and waking up to make their classic waffle mix, where it’s just massive and fluffy and you get to load it up with the butter. My favorite part of the waffle is when there’s some butter that hasn’t been fully melted yet that just falls right into the little waffle square.
But on the other hand there’s light fluffy airy pancakes! I love when they’re golden brown, flat, and smooth, where the butter and syrup is cascade down the side.
Are you hungry right now because this whole conversation is making my mouth water!
Can This Turn Into Waffles?
So, aren’t they basically the same thing? Couldn’t I just take this delicious pancake batter and put it into a waffle maker? Actually ,you can’t. I know they basically have the same ingredients: flour, sugar, and some sort of leavening agent, but here’s the thing: there are two very important distinctions between a pancake and a waffle.
Waffles are known for their crisp brown outside shell while pancakes are known for being a light and fluffy. Because of this pancake batter might have more of the leavening agent. For example, my Blueberry Pancake recipe has 2 tablespoons of baking powder. That's because we really want them to rise, get those bubbles and make a really light delicious batter. In a waffle batter, the difference could be that it has more sugar because it needs that sugar to caramelize and brown in order to get that beautiful outside crust that you want in a waffle.
While you can try to make a pancake batter work, to me it seems more of like making a square peg fitting in a round hole they’re similar but they’re not the same thing. If you’re really interested in having waffles for breakfast you can go check out this recipe here for a beautiful crusted waffle
Blueberry Lemon Pancakes? Or Plain Jane?
During the summer, I love incorporating berries wherever I can! They’re fresh, vibrant, beautiful, and so juicy in the summer so for me it’s a no-brainer to add blueberries into the pancakes! If you’re not really feeling blueberries today or maybe the blueberries in the fridge aren’t looking the best, you can definitely them out. I actually found really large, massive blueberries at the store so it made it kind of hard because the blueberries were actually bursting while I was cooking the pancakes! So while we all love a plump juicy blueberry, let’s save those just for snacking and use the smaller blueberries in the actual pancake batter! I think that way you’ll be able to add more blueberries, whereas I was only able to add four or five.
If it’s not blueberry season and you want to still have blueberry pancakes, you can use frozen blueberries. But, you need to make sure the frozen blueberries are completely and totally thawed before you add them to the batter. The reason for this is because you don’t want to add any extra liquid to the pancake batter so if you throw in a frozen blueberry, the frozen blueberry will defrost in the pancake while it’s cooking. This will lead to excess water that could end up as a really watery pancake and that's no fun.
Blueberry Compote
Let’s talk about blueberry compote!
This is one of my favorite things because I have such a beautiful memory attached to this. A long time ago, maybe like 10 years (honestly I don’t even remember), my family went to this big family reunion trip to Oregon. While we were there, there was this massive blueberry farm where everyone was able to pick enough blueberries to fill their buckets. The next morning, we made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and I think someone made like a blueberry syrup compote kind of thing. It was amazing! They were the juiciest blueberries that made the best blueberry pancakes you’ve ever had! Every time I have this blueberry compote, it reminds me of that happy memory of all of my family being in one place and just how wonderful it was to be in the kitchen cooking these blueberry pancakes.
This blueberry compote is so easy to make! Blueberries, a little bit of sugar, and a little bit of vanilla extract! So easy and so delicious! The key to this is really letting the blueberry compote just kind of chill on the stove. You can add cornstarch, if you feel like it’s not thickening enough, but you have to be careful because if you do add cornstarch it is going make it more of a jammy consistency. I like to just let the blueberries hang out in the stove at a medium low heat for like 10 to 15 minutes. They will thicken up as they cook and it will be so delicious to drizzle on top of pancakes, oatmeal, cereal or even just put it on your toast! It’s delicious!
Blueberry Pancakes with Lemon
Ingredients
- 2 cups Flour
- ¼ cup Sugar
- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
- Sprinkle of salt
- 1 ½ cups Milk
- ½ stick Butter melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 1 Lemon juiced, and zested
- 1 cup Blueberries
Blueberry Compote:
- 2 cups Blueberries
- ¼ cup Sugar
- ½ Lemon juiced
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk to combine.
- In a measuring cup, measure out two cups of milk. Mix in two eggs and vanilla. Add in lemon juice and lemon zest. Whisk together to break up the eggs and stir the ingredients together.
- Combine the wet ingredients into the dry and mix one to two times.
- Then, add in the melted butter.
- Mix until just combined. It’s okay if there are some lumps in the batter because that helps the pancakes rise!
- Set the batter aside for about ten minutes.
- I use a griddle to cook my pancakes, but you can use a large skillet if you have one! Use a ¼ cup measure to scoop out some batter and pour onto a lightly buttered griddle.
- Add in a few blueberries on top of the batter.
- They cook for about 2-3 minutes on one side, or until you see bubbles rising to the top. Flip them over and cook for another minute or so.
- This batter makes about 12 pancakes, so cover the pancakes with a towel while you finish cooking the others so they stay nice and warm!
How to make the Blueberry Compote:
- Add blueberries, sugar, and lemon juice to a small saucepan.
- Turn heat to a medium heat and let simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Once the blueberries begin to pop, gently squish some with a fork.
- Serve over pancakes!
That's it!
It's a pretty easy batter right? I love that you can make this base pancake recipe a million and one ways! Although I happen to think these Blueberry Pancakes with Lemon version is my personal favorite!
Cheers!
-Holly Michelle
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