A little over a year ago, a friend took me to the restaurant Bottega Louie's in La, where I tried their Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce. Let me tell you, I have never tasted pancakes so delicious. Ever since then, I've been wanting to recreate those pancakes. I've finally gotten around to experimenting and modifying a recipe that I found for just plain lemon-ricotta pancakes to be closer to what I remember the Bottega Louie pancakes to be.
I have to say, these pancakes turned out so well! The lemon is refreshing and compliments the richness of the ricotta cheese, while the blueberry throws a tart-sweetness to the mix. I am very pleased with this recipe, and so glad I made the modifications that I did. I highly recommend trying these if you are a breakfast food fiend like my husband and I, or if you want to make a fancier breakfast for family/friends. This is a really easy recipe, but it does take quite a bit of time to put all the ingredients together. The syrup takes the longest. Try these pancakes at some point despite the time they take to make, because they are absolutely delicious and totally worth the effort!
Get ready though, this is going to be a long one...
Prep and Cook Time: about 45 min
Makes: Roughly 18-20 small/medium sized pancakes
Ingredients for Pancakes:
5 TB unsalted butter
1 cup milk (I used non-fat, but you can use what you prefer)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 ts baking powder
1 ts sea salt
3 large brown eggs, have yolks and whites in separate bowls
2 TB unrefined sugar
1-2 TB lemon zest (I used the zest from 3 lemons)
1/2 lemon, seeded
1/2 ts Bourbon vanilla extract
3/4 cup ricotta cheese (I used low fat, but you can choose as you please)
1 cup blueberries
Powder sugar (for dusting over the pancakes)
Ingredients for Blueberry "Syrup":
1 cup blueberries
1 cup filtered water
2 cups unrefined sugar (or more, as needed)
What to Do:
First, place butter and milk in a small saucepan over a medium-low flame. Allow butter to melt and stir. Once butter is completely melted, remove from heat and transfer to a bowl to cool.
Next, you want to start the blueberry syrup, because this will take a while to cook. Add one cup blueberries and one cup water to a small saucepan, and place over medium flame. When the water begins to simmer, slowly stir in one cup of sugar. With a whisk, gently smash the blueberries. They don't need to be non-existent, just not whole. Reduce heat to low flame. After about five minutes, stir in the second cup of sugar. Lower flame just a touch more, and allow this mixture to continue to simmer as you make the pancake batter, stirring this sauce occasionally. All together, this should cook for roughly 30 minutes. You want to get this to a relatively thick, syrup-like consistency.
In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt together. Set this to the side for now.
Take your flour mixture, and mix this in with the wet ingredients a little at a time. Mix well enough to combine ingredients but not to get out all the lumps from the batter. Make sure you have all the lemon juice you can squeeze out of that lemon half mixed in there. Then mix in one cup of blueberries.
In a separate, clean medium mixing bowl, whisk your egg whites until they start getting frothy. This will really work your upper arm muscles. When the egg whites start looking bubbly and frothy, add in one tablespoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Continue whisking until the mixture is no longer liquid, but foamy and frothy. Stir the lovely looking, frothy egg whites in with the pancake batter.
Now you're going to add your ricotta cheese. I stirred in 1/4 cup at a time until I had added all 3/4 cups. Again, you don't want to over-mix the batter, just stir until the ingredients are all combined. We want these pancakes to be fluffy, light, and airy, so you cannot over-mix.
Let's get back to our blueberry syrup mixture. If you see that it is very thin and liquid-y, add more sugar and let it simmer a bit more. You want the consistency to be a little thick, not quite as thick as maple syrup but not thin like juice. Somewhere in between. I hope that makes sense. Once the mixture is at the desired consistency, remove from heat and set aside.
On a hot griddle or pan, coat the surface with a little butter. Begin scooping your batter onto the pan, enough to make a small-medium sized pancake. Cook on one side until you see bubble starting to form along the surface or (if you're me and a poor judge of bubbles) when the bottom looks golden brown, then flip to the other side. Cook the other side until it's golden brown as well, then transfer to a plate.
Lightly dust pancakes with powdered sugar, then drizzled blueberry syrup over them. They are now beautiful, delicious, and ready to serve!
I hope that if you try this recipe you will really enjoy it! Let me know if you try this, and if you have any suggestions for further modification to the recipe. I made this for some friends who stayed with us over the weekend and it was amazing. I actually wish I had doubled the recipe, because we all wanted more than we had.
Till next time!
Love, Little Mouse
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