Cottage Cheese and Apple Pancakes with Whipped Cinnamon Butter

This recipe idea came about in an interesting manner. On Thursdays, Dave and I, both don’t have any classes and so we like to call Thursdays: Special Breakfast Day. Sometimes I make fancy omelets oozing with cheddar cheese; sometimes I make French toast or even Brunch. This Thursday I decided I would find a recipe to finish off the ricotta cheese I had and incorporate one of Dave’s favorite fruits: pears; I went online and found this recipe for Ricotta and Pear Pancakes. Perfect! Or so I thought. Thursday morning turned into a comedy of sorts; first my ricotta cheese went bad weeks before its expiration date. I said: “it’s okay hon, I’ll just replace the ricotta with cottage cheese.” So I began to make my batter and cream my cottage cheese, when I suddenly asked Dave to shred the pears, nearing the completion of my batter.  Yah, that didn’t work out either, the pears had somehow rotted through and were quickly thrown into the garbage bin with anger. Thus using my ability to improvise, I began to slightly modify the recipe and turned it into the one you see below. In a way, I’m glad that all of this happened because I emerged with a wonderful, flavourful pancake that I deemed the best pancakes ever. Hope you enjoy!

Cottage Cheese and Apple Pancakes with Whipped Cinnamon Butter

Ingredients for batter                                    Ingredients for butter

-1 ¼ cup of all purpose flour                           -1/2 cup of butter or margarine           

-1 ¼ tsp of baking soda                                   -2 heaping TBS of white or brown sugar

-Heaping tsp of cinnamon                               -2 heaping tsp of cinnamon

-1 ¼ TBS of sugar

-a dash of nutmeg (optional)

-1/2 cup of cottage cheese

-2 eggs

-1/4 cup of apple sauce (optional)

-1/4 cup milk

-1/4 cup of apple juice

-2 large apples (shredded)

I like to make my butter first but it’s all up to you. Now I’m using real butter because it’s so much better but you can go ahead and use what ever you have lying around. 

If you’re using butter though, make sure that it is room temperature and that you cut it into small cubes otherwise if you’re using a machine like mine, you might over heat the motor and break it.  Now I chose brown sugar to make my butter and in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have as the colour looks unappetizing in pictures but I prefer brown sugar to white granulated sugar. So it really all depends on what colour you want your butter to be; if you’re using white sugar it’ll be a nice caramel-like colour. Put all of your butter ingredients together in a small bowl and mix thoroughly until whipped and smooth then set aside.

Now we’re going to make the pancake batter. For this you’ll need two mixing bowls; in the larger one mix together flour, baking soda, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Now when I say a dash of nutmeg, I mean a dash; nutmeg is very strong and you want to use it sparingly otherwise your pancakes will be very strong, and not in a good way. Once it’s all mixed properly, create a well in the center and put aside.

Next, in your smaller bowl, add your cottage cheese and mix it with your electric mixer until smooth and creamy looking.

Then add your eggs, apple sauce, milk and apple juice to your cottage cheese mixture and blend until all ingredients are combined.

Pour your cottage cheese mixture into the well of your dry ingredients and mix together with a spoon or spatula until everything is blended properly and your mixture is of a batter-like consistency.

Wash and peel your apples. For this recipe I like to use McIntosh apples because of the soft texture and sweet flavour.  You want to shred your apples; I like to use a cheese grater for this. Make sure that you don’t shred the core, that’s for the garbage bin.  Also, don’t worry if your apples turn brown, like McIntosh’s tend to do within a few minutes, as you will be mixing them into your batter.

Fold in your shredded apple and voila! You’re now done your pancake batter.

Now onto the fun part!

I like to use Pam cooking spray when I make pancakes because it’s a lot easier to add between pancake making; and trust me, you’ll want to spray a bit on before each new pancake as they will stick and become hard to handle. Put your heat on medium and spread batter on THINLY as these plump up a bit during the cooking and you don’t want a doughy centre.  Let cook for 1-2 minutes until the underbelly is nice and brown and then flip.  You don’t have to make your pancakes as big as these, I just like to flip gargantuan pancakes but small is good too, just takes longer to cook up your batter, but definitely better if you have guest of multiple people eating these.

Once cooked add your cinnamon butter and watch that yummy buttery goodness melt all over those delicious apple pancakes. You can even put a little bit of maple syrup on top, pour yourself a large glass of milk and enjoy!

Hope you have a very nice Special Breakfast Day!