Pancake of the Month Extra Bonus: Cinnamon Mascarpone Pancakes with Warm Morello Cherries and Hazelnuts

This is a story of three recipes. The DC loves bread pudding, and when I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, I knew I had to make it for him. It's March Break, I got nothin' but time.

Of course, after that (quite tasty) breakfast, I had a lot of mascarpone cheese left over. Going through the freezer, I also discovered a bag of frozen cherries (no doubt purchased to avoid a repeat of last year's fiasco^*). To the internet! A quick search gave me this recipe for cherries poached in wine with mascarpone topping. I replaced the wine, sugar, and orange zest with Frangelico liqueur. Highly recommended, A+++++++, would repeat.

I also came across this pancake recipe from Bobby Flay. Naturally, I had to try it. It meant I had to buy some cherry brandy, which I don't exactly have a lot of use for otherwise. And which only comes in huge bottles and tastes like cough syrup. Fortunately, it pairs well with Coke. But I was very excited to flambé something.

The result?

These are incredible. Sadly, my flambéing skills are very much lacking, because I could not get the brandy to catch fire, but it does not matter. I didn't have morello cherries in juice, just frozen cherries, and I used toasted ground hazelnuts because I have a huge bag in my freezer (left over from an unsuccessful nutella venture - protip: don't blanche the nuts if you want to make butter) but regardless the topping was so good. And the pancakes themselves are great: nice and fluffy. I really like this idea of putting orange zest in pancake batter. It gives a nice zip. The recipe says it makes 12 pancakes at 1/4 c. each; I got 15 1/2.

They are a little intensive to make, what with the sauce and blanching and roasting and chopping hazelnuts and the mascarpone and honey, but worth the bother. Go, make these.



As for us, we still have a bunch of mascarpone left. I think we'll just start putting it on our toast.

^*Incidentally, I did remake that recipe with fresh cherries, and it was not great. No puff. I just don't think puffed pan pancakes are my friend.

^**Fun fact: when I was biking home, some people were playing ball on my street and called "Car!" as I passed them. Then they realized what they had said and amended it to "Bike!" Then: "Alternative mode of transportation!" Game on.