This week’s Sweet Melissa Sundays selection is Mom’s French Pancakes, which are in fact crepes. Yum! Is anyone else watching “The Great Food Truck Race" on the Food Network? I think it’s kind of a fun show and last week the crepe truck was eliminated. I have to say, as much as I like crepes, when I get food from a truck – which is not too often – I want something a little heartier, like a big messy sandwich or a burrito (the team had been doing well up until last week, though). Anyway, back to this week’s recipe. The crepes were our second breakfast today, actually more like brunch. We are training for marathon number two (well, number two for me, a lot higher number for Josh) and ate energy bars before our fourteen mile run this morning and the crepes were a wonderful treat to look forward to after the run.
Better yet? The batter can be blended ahead of time (and takes approximately one minute to mix) and I made it last night, so all I had to do was cook the crepes this morning. I was worried it would be difficult to swirl and flip the crepes, and suspected I might make a complete mess of the crepes. I almost made a full recipe in anticipation of disaster. I can definitely use more practice, as my crepes definitely were not perfectly round, but I’m glad I stuck with a half recipe, since they’re just light enough to keep eating. We had some with jumbleberry preserves from the Sweet Melissa book and some with Biscoff spread, which has a consistency similar to Nutella, but a spice cookie taste. Since I need more practice with my crepe skills, I will have to make more soon to try other variations.
This recipe rated an 8 for Deliciousness and a 2 for Effort for an EDR of 4. Many thanks to Jamie of Good Eats and Sweet Treats for an excellent selection. You can find the recipe here on Jamie’s site and visit the Sweet Melissa site to see other variations of these yummy crepes.
This week’s Sweet Melissa Sundays treat is Lemon Walnut Sour Cream Pound Cake. Since quick breads tend to be both quick to put together and disappear (in this house), I am always happy to try a new one. I’d been craving citrus lately, too, and it’s always more fun to satisfy cravings with baked goods rather than just plain fruit – I have been eating plenty of clementines, though. The recipe said that the baking time could be up to an hour and a half; I was planning to have this for breakfast on Saturday, and I figured that if I wanted that to happen, it would be best to make it on Friday night. The cake was a breeze to put together and I thought the batter looked particularly nice; it was a very silky pale yellow. The recipe called for two ingredients I didn’t have on hand: shortening and sour cream, so I substituted nonfat plain yogurt for both. The cake was probably not quite as rich as it would have been with the shortening and sour cream, but it was still very moist and had a nice sturdy crumb, so I think the substitutions worked fine.
Overall, I liked this cake a lot. I appreciated the addition of walnuts, they made the cake seem a bit more substantial and breakfast-like. Nuts, yogurt, and fruit – definitely breakfast! I would have appreciated a bit more lemon flavor. You could taste it, but it wasn’t quite as intense as I like. A while back the group made Melissa’s Orange Poppyseed Cake, which called for pulverizing an entire orange in the food processor, and that probably would have added the extra tang I desired. I think Josh liked it a little better than me, since he gave it an 8.5 to my 7.5 for Deliciousness. It’s my blog, so I’m going to go with 7.5 and a 2 for Effort, giving the cake an EDR of 3.75. Many thanks to Raeann of Basically, Baby Boots for a perfect mid-January recipe. You can find the recipe here on Raeann’s site and visit the SMS blogroll to see what the rest of the group thought of this treat.
This week’s Sweet Melissa Sundays treat is Raised Waffles with Warm Brown Sugar Bananas. This week on the Sweet Melissa Sundays P&Q section, a lot of people mentioned they do not own waffle makers. We have two (and no blender), since Josh and I each happened to own one before we moved in together and we never use them – so I can see why people don’t bother to get them. I enjoy waffles, but if I’m making a sweet breakfast, I generally gravitate towards things of the muffin/coffee cake variety since they keep well and provide breakfast for a few days. Oh, and one of the waffle irons happens to be a Hello Kitty one. I loved Hello Kitty when I was a child. I used to save my allowance to buy trinkets at the “Hello Kitty store,” which was a actually just a regular toy store with a small Sanrio section (if you’ve ever been to one of those enormous Sanrio stores, you’d laugh what I considered a Hello Kitty store). My mom and I saw this waffle maker at Target just before Christmas several years back, and thanks to one of my brothers needing a last minute gift for me, I received it! The recipe specifically stated to use a regular waffle maker, not Belgian, so this was the more practical choice of the two for this recipe (yes, I said practical when talking about a Hello Kitty waffle maker). 
I don’t specifically recall ever having a yeasted waffle, but this recipe was based on Marion Cunningham’s recipe, and my dad often cooked from her Breakfast Book when I was young, so I suspect some of the waffles I ate growing up had yeast. These are pretty simple to make, just mix all the ingredients except eggs and baking soda the night before, let batter sit overnight, then whisk in the last two ingredients when you’re ready for breakfast, plus make the banana sauce. The end result was puffy waffles, with a nice bit of chewiness from the yeast – breakfast bliss. Eloise’s dream of having a cat for breakfast came true when I gave her a waffle piece, without the sauce of course. The brown sugar bananas were delicious, though I do think a sauce containing butter, rum, brown sugar, and maple syrup is breakfast debauchery.
We rate this recipe an 8 for Deliciousness and a 2.5 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 3.2. Many thanks to Lauren of Fried Pickles and Ice Cream for selecting this recipe and reminding me how yummy waffles are. You can find the recipe here on Lauren’s site and see what the rest of the bakers thought via the SMS blogroll.
Earlier this summer, my boyfriend’s mother had given me a recipe for blueberry crumble and somehow the recipe was misplaced (actually, if you saw my unruly recipe stack that “somehow” would not surprise you) before I had a chance to make it; I did find another blueberry recipe of hers, this one for buckle, in the pile, so I made that instead; the batter of this cake was very dense, but it baked up nice and fluffy, with a thin, crunchy sugar topping; we loved it (and it was super-easy), but Mr. Penpen’s mom says the crumble is even better, so she’s going provide me with another copy of that recipe - look for it soon.
Blueberry Buckle, from Nancy R. (for printable recipe, click HERE)
Crumb Topping¼ cup butter at room temperature, cut into small pieces1/3 cup flour½ teaspoon cinnamon½ cup sugarCake¼ cup butter at room temperature¾ cup sugar1 egg½ cup milk (regular or buttermilk)2 cups flour½ teaspoon baking powder½ teaspoon salt2 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed and drainedPreheat oven to 375 degrees and butter a 9x9 inch baking pan (8x8 would also work).Mix the ingredients for the crumb topping together in a small bowl with either a pastry blender or fork until butter is incorporated. Set aside.In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a larger bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer) cream the butter and sugar until well blended. Beat in egg. Add milk, and then stir in flour mixture. Fold in the drained blueberries. Spread batter in pan and sprinkle with the crumb topping. Bake 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Last week I posted about using leftover buttermilk and raspberries to make a cake. This week I was pleased to find a second recipe that utilizes nonfat dry milk, which I originally purchased to make Brown Sugar Vanilla Ice Cream for last week’s Sweet Melissa Sunday dessert. And not only does it use up leftover dry milk, it’s a healthy recipe: Energy Bars! After seeing so many great recipes from Ellie Krieger’s The Food You Crave on various blogs, I checked it out of the library and one of the recipes that caught my eye was homemade energy bars. And then this weekend I saw that Leslie of Lethally Delicious had made the bars and was sold.
The smell of these bars reminded me of shopping at health food stores with my mom when I was a kid – in a good way. And they are wonderful: chewy and crunchy, with just enough sweetness to perk you up and protein to sustain you – the perfect snack. I eat a lot of Luna Bars, but I may not need to anymore; these are super-easy to make and seem like they will adapt easily to different flavor combinations (and what is currently in your pantry). Mr. Penpen is eager to reduce the nutritional value by making them with chocolate and I would like to try a peanut variety, possible together. This recipe gets an 8 for Deliciousness and a 2 for Effort, giving them an EDR of 4.Energy Bars from The Food You Crave via The Food Network (my changes in green)1 cup quick cooking rolled oats 1/2 cup raw unsalted sunflower seeds 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ 1/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour 1/2 cup dried apricots 1/2 cup raw almonds (roasted pistachios)1/2 cup raisins (dried cherries)1/2 cup pitted dried dates (dried apples)1/2 cup powdered nonfat dry milk1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/3 cup pure maple syrupDrizzle of honey2 large eggsPreheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9 by 13-inch baking pan with cooking spray. Place all ingredients except the syrup and eggs in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is finely chopped. Add the syrup and eggs and pulse until the mixture is well combined. It will resemble a coarse paste. Transfer to the baking pan and spread evenly. Bake until just done, about 20 minutes. Cut into 20 squares.
When I make scones, they’re typically of the cream/currant variety; I particularly like the ones from The Best New Recipes, which I will definitely have to blog about one day. However, the very first scones I ever ate were made from oat bran and baked by my father. They were adapted from a wheat bran scone recipe in The Breakfast Book by Marion Cunningham, and he said he used oat bran because it was considered the most heart healthy grain at the time. Whether they were actually healthful or not is questionable – I will have to get my hands on a copy of the book to see what else is in them, but regardless, they were excellent scones. I had pretty much forgotten about them, but then last week I was reading Molly Wizenberg’s Cooking Life column in the July issue of Bon Appetit and was reminded of my fondness for oat scones.
The recipe featured in Bon Appetit is for Blueberry Oat Scones, and they are quite different in taste and texture from the ones my dad used to make (as far as I can remember from the late eighties and early nineties), but equally good. The scones have a buttery, fluffy texture – almost like a muffin; in fact, it was hard to believe there were whole oats in them. I don’t typically use condiments on muffins or scones, and these don’t need anything, but I do think they would be tasty with a little jam or honey, as they are not terribly sweet. Overall, a great way to start a weekend morning! I gave this recipe an 8 for Deliciousness and a 2.5 for Effort, giving them an EDR of 3.2. You can find the recipe HERE. [Note: the original recipe calls for eleven tablespoons of butter. I made half a batch and used four, and they were great.]
This week’s Sweet Melissa Sunday recipe was Granola Breakfast Cookies. I am a big fan of any cookie you can justify eating for breakfast, so I was looking forward to making these. I am habitually in a huge rush on weekday mornings and require portable (and neat) food to eat on my commute. My typical breakfast is a Luna Bar, and sadly, since the salmonella outbreak earlier this year, my favorite peanut butter flavored ones have been unavailable. I decided to take this as an occasion to turn this into a peanut butter breakfast cookie. 
I added a half-cup of peanut butter to the cookies, added an extra quarter cup of flour, and a handful of peanut butter chips and chopped peanuts. The recipe said that the cookies should be chewy, but probably due to my hasty additions, they were rather crumbly. I liked them that way, though, so it worked out fine. I loved that you could really taste the honey flavor in the cookies, since I feel like it is something that often gets overpowered by other ingredients. I have to confess that the dough was so yummy I ate a little more than I should. Thus far a lot of the Sweet Melissa recipes have involved making extra goodies - brownies for a cake, orange peel for biscotti, granola for cookies - if you have the time and inclination (you can also easily purchase them). I think it’s fun to have the opportunity to make multiple treats, but this week, despite having a long weekend, I was a little short on kitchen time, so I opted for store-bought granola, which worked out fine.
I gave this recipe a 7.5 for Deliciousness and a 2 for Effort, giving it an EDR of 3.75. Many thanks to Jessica of A Singleton in the Kitchen for giving us SMS/TWD bakers a break from rich desserts and selecting this great cookie. You can find the recipe on Jessica’s site, and see what the other bakers thought via the Sweet Melissa Sundays site.
