Pancake of the Month: Hummingbird Pancakes with Cream Cheese Anglaise

So, there is an indie pattern company called Cake Patterns and I, observant lass that I am, only recently clued into the fact that most of their patterns are, in fact, named after cakes. To be fair, they only have five patterns right now, and aside from one name, it's not readily apparent. It wasn't until Steph (Hi, Steph. We have never met. Can I call you Steph?) announced her next pattern was Red Velvet that I started to wonder. Tiramisu is obvious. Then I thought that Pavlova was maybe not named after the dancer, but after the cake named after the dancer. But is there a Hummingbird cake?^*

Yes, yes, there is. Apparently it's a southern thing. And since there is a hummingbird cake, there must be hummingbird pancakes.

Hoo boy.

Looking at the recipe tells me that these are not pancakes for everyday. That's a lot of sugar. Yes, I do have quite a bit of a sweet tooth, but even I am saying wowza. The icing in the cake is replaced by Cream Cheese Anglaise which has even more sugar. My teeth were aching just thinking about it. But I persevered. You know, for Science!

The result?

Hey, South? Y'all have been holding out!

Wow, these are good. Toothsome, in fact. They are definitely not too sweet. The buttermilk and pineapple in the pancake and the cream cheese in the sauce add just the right amount of zing to balance the sweetness of the banana and, well, sugar. The pecans also help somehow. They're fluffy and moist and lovely even without the sauce. The recipe says it makes 18 pancakes. I got 13.5 heaping 1/4 c pancakes.

The cream cheese anglaise was quite easy to make, although I was expecting something like a liquidy custard. My resulting texture was less creamy and more... foamy. That could be due to two things: 1) the recipe calls for 1 1/2 c. of half-and-half, and that stuff only comes in 250 or 500 mL containers and I have no use for 125 mL of half-and-half, so I used 250 mL and made up the difference in milk; and 2) I accidentally added the butter and vanilla before bringing the sauce to the boil instead of after. It was still really good, though.

Now excuse me while I go eat some broccoli. Oy.

^*This naming rule does not hold for the the Cake Riffs. Sadly, there is no Cabarita cake - but someone should get right on that because it's a great name for a cake - and Bonny Knit Sailor Top is kind of an awkward name for a dessert. But the rule still works for the major patterns.