The Perpetual Feast

Due to the snow, we didn’t have Christmas morning.  No one could get here.  Now, there’s still snow on the ground, but the road and driveway are clear, so we decided to have Christmas yesterday (what’s a few weeks between friends).  Every Christmas, after we open the presents, I make mountains of these pancakes for our Christmas morning breakfast, accompanied by hot chocolate or coffee depending on your preference.   They are different than regular pancakes because they are not cakey.  They don’t absorb a lot of the maple syrup, and have a distinct tang because of the cottage cheese.  I don’t remember where I first saw the recipe – I remember it had six tablespoons of butter, but I modified the original to make them low fat.  To be honest, I no longer measure when I make them, so the recipe may take a little more flour to make the batter right.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

2 Tablespoons butter, divided
1 cup non-fat cottage cheese
1 ½ cups egg substitute
4 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

Melt one tablespoon of the butter and allow to cool slightly. Mix the cottage cheese and egg substitute in a large bowl. Add the melted butter and stir well. Add the flour and stir well until incorporated. This batter should not be runny, but should be like regular pancake batter – you may need to add more flour a tablespoon at a time to get it to the right consistency.  Spray a non-stick griddle pan with cooking spray.  Heat over medium heat.  When the pan is hot, use a pair of tongs to hold the remaining tablespoon of butter and use a bit of the butter to lightly grease the pan.  Re-grease it between batches. (You can make these with only cooking spray to grease the pan. They are a bit lower in fat, but they lose some of flavor).  Spoon by about ¼ cup measure onto pan. Cook until the underside of the pancake are golden brown; turn and cook the other side.

You can keep these warm on a plate in a low temperature oven while you make subsequent batches.  This makes about 16 pancakes, with a serving of 4 pancakes having about 5.5 grams of fat/serving.  Serve with your favorite syrup.

Personal Aside: The pan in the photo is known in our family as “the WestBend”.   Once a long time ago it made fried chicken and other such items.  Now it only comes out to make these pancakes.  The rest of the year it lies buried in the bottom of the pantry. But “break out the WestBend” means Christmas here.