My Breakfast Credo

pancakes, originally uploaded by emily loke.

Not being much of a morning person, I’m seldom awake early enough for breakfast anywhere but at home. Not that it mattered until recently: having to wake up at some ungodly hour of the morning and eat breakfast bleary-eyed, half asleep and unable-to-taste-anything-I-was-so-tired, was a (week) daily occurrence - thanks to 8 a.m. classes - that completely put me off even the suggestion of breakfast for the longest time. Though I’m much more appreciative of breakfast these days, its still a meal that is usually passed over in favour of a good lunch at a café or restaurant instead.

The prospect of cereals, fresh fruit, yogurt or whole wheat anythings just doesn’t strike me as a good enough reason to get up in the morning, and similarly, I know very few people who will willingly hop out of bed in the morning at the promise of a steaming bowl of oatmeal. Breakfast, as far as I’m concerned, should be as decadently unhealthy as possible. Breakfast, if you’re having it, should be your very reason to wake up that morning. Whose ever heard of anyone waking up to the smell of an organic wheat germ smoothie?

One of my newly discovered favourite breakfast foods is pancakes. I say newly discovered because until recently, I’d never actually enjoyed them much before: I’d always found them too eggy for me. When A. requested them one morning a few months back, I looked all over for a version we could both eat, but having found none, made one up (ok, reappropriated one) myself. It doesn’t contain any egg yolks and I don’t use butter for the pan, which I’m told practically halves the calorie count, but depending on what you like on your pancakes, they’re still unhealthy enough to be worth waking up for.

Kind-of-healthy-but-not-really-because-we-like-them-with-tons-of-syrup Pancakes:

(This recipe makes about 12 littlepancakes, each 4 inches across)
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbs sugar
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 egg whites
1 cup milk
2 tbs butter, very soft or slightly melted
Cooking spray

1. Heat your frying pan on the stove on medium-low heat while you mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Preheat your oven to the lowest temperature it will go.
2. Lightly coat the pan with cooking spray, and then pour a large serving spoon full of the batter into the centre of the pan for little pancakes, or a ladleful of batter for larger ones.
3. Cook the batter, untouched, until you see the edges starting to cook. Bubbles should have formed on the uncooked surface of the pancake.
4. For the unskilled like me: Slide a metal spatula under the pancake and flip it quickly onto its uncooked side. For the showoffs: Pick up the frying pan and flip the pancake with a simultaneous outwards and upwards flick of your wrist.
5. Cook the other side of the pancake till its browned up nicely like the top side. (Times obviously vary per stove, but as a guide, it takes mine about 1-2 minutes.)
6. Stick your cooked pancake into the warm oven on either an ovenproof plate or a baking tray.
7. Repeat steps 2-6 till your batter runs out, then remove all your pancakes from the oven and serve with anything toothache-inducingly sweet you like (we recommend maple syrup or nutella).