Blueberry Sour Cream Pancakes

Hello, everyone!  It's Thursday again, so I figured I'd do a simple, yet impressive weekend breakfast.  Pancakes really are a crowd pleaser, but people rarely make them from scratch, of which I'm guilty, too.  While it's easy to just grab the big yellow box of pancake mix, it is just as easy to mix these up from scratch.

I grew up with my dad making pancakes almost every weekend.  Our favorite was pancakes with chocolate chips (who doesn't love a little bit of chocolate in the morning?  Also, isn't that a brilliant idea, to give a small child a little extra sugar, first thing in the morning?), with banana pancakes being a very close second.

We make pancakes for our daughter fairly often, and she loves to dig in as soon as they're ready!  However, this week I made these up for a special milestone in my daughter's life; she started her first swimming lessons on Monday!
She's not crazy about putting her face in the water (not many kids love it right away), but she'll get there.  For only having gone to three lessons (as I write this up), she's doing great!  Needless to say, she loved having some special pancakes made up for her special day!
She ate two whole pancakes for breakfast, and snagged another one on the way out to her swim lesson (don't worry, 30 minutes lapsed between this snack and her lesson!).

Here's the grocery list for this one:

2 C All purpose flour

4 tsp sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp Kosher salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Dash of freshly ground nutmeg

1 C sour cream (or Greek yogurt, equal amount)

1 C milk

2 Eggs

2 Tbs vegetable oil

2 Tbs melted butter, plus some for the skillet

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 pint of blueberries

Yes, I know, this is a lot more ingredients than the box mixes, however if you take a couple of minutes to gather everything before you start the mixing, this comes together very quickly.  The sour cream may be a different ingredient for some people to have in their pancakes, however it keeps these pancakes lovely and moist!  

To start off with, put the sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg into a large mixing bowl.  I like to put these into the bowl first, to make sure that they are well mixed into the resulting batter, so that the pancakes rise evenly.

Add in the eggs, and sour cream, again mixing well.  While you're doing this, you should have your butter melting either in the microwave, or on the stove top.  

Add in the milk and vanilla extract, then add in the melted butter.  I don't like to add the melted butter in the second I pull it out of the microwave; I always worry that it will be too hot, and start to cook the eggs.  It's never happened, but I like to just wait a minute or so to let the butter cool off a bit before adding it into what's in the bowl.

After you add in the melted butter, go on and add in the vegetable oil; you can mix this all day long without your pancakes getting tough; only once you add your flour do you want to limit your mixing to just what you need to get the batter to come together.  Tough pancakes are no good!

So, add in the flour, and mix until everything just comes together.  There will be some lumps left in the batter, and that's okay, don't worry about it.  I usually mix my batter about 7-10 stirs around the bowl before I stop.  There are lumps, and it isn't beautiful, but it cooks up beautifully.

I always start off adding about 1/2 C of fresh blueberries, because I don't want there to be more blueberries than there is pancake in each cake, but I ended up using nearly a full pint of blueberries; the rest I just scattered around the plates, for decoration, and it worked out perfectly.  Again, just fold these blueberries in until the blueberries are incorporated into the batter, 2-3 folds.
I use an electric skillet to make my pancakes on, set on 350*, but that would be medium heat on a stove top.  I like to use the skillet, because I don't need to add any extra butter to make it non-stick, and I can cook up at least 4 at a time.
I like good-sized pancakes, so I dish them up in 1/2 C increments, and they make perfect sized pancakes!

Once you see bubbles popping in the center of the pancake, and the surface has dulled (no longer "wet" looking), you can flip them over.  This usually takes about 3-4 minutes; flip them over and cook for another 2 minutes or so.  The sugar in the batter makes them look slightly dark, but they're far from burnt!

If you're cooking for a crowd, you can keep them warm in a 200* oven, until you're ready to serve!  My daughter has already asked me a couple of times this week to make these again!