Lemon Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes

Blueberry season is a happy time around here. We live next door to the farm where Larry grew up and over the years, his Mom had planted about 15 or 20 blueberry bushes. They are now all about 12 feet tall, and with our rainy spring, they are absolutely loaded with berries. It is like blueberry heaven up there this summer, and everybody wants to go to heaven, right? Pancakes are a wonderful way to use blueberries in the hot summertime, because you don’t have to turn on the oven. We don’t have air conditioning, so I have a very strict rule about turning on the oven if it is very hot outside. It is not usual for my oven to stay off from June to September, so if I want to use up blueberries while they are still fresh, pancakes are perfect. These have a light, fluffy texture from the combination of the lemon juice and buttermilk with the leaveners, so even on a hot July day, they go down like berry-studded clouds.

I made the first batch for Ellyn, Jason and kids when they were here last week. It is probably kind of annoying to eat a new creation with a food blogger, because they sit there saying things like “I wonder if these would be better with this or that added, or if you did this thing a little differently, I think the texture would be even lighter.” Ellyn stopped my musings by saying “Why would you change a single thing about these? They are perfect!” I took her at her word and when I made this second batch for Larry last Saturday morning, I exactly copied what I had done the first time. Ellyn was right!

You can find step by step photos for making pancakes in the Corn Pancake recipe here. You can bet I’ll be making those again too, once the sweet corn is ripe. You can use just about any frying pan to make pancakes, but I like cast iron best, and my cast iron griddle best of all. If you are using a light weight pan, you can wait a bit to start getting it hot, but if you have cast iron, you can start the heat low at the same time you begin putting these together.

In a 3 or 4 quart bowl, whisk together:
2 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking power
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt

In a 4 cup measuring cup, or similarly sized bowl, beat together:
1 & 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
the juice and zest from one large lemon
4 ounces melted butter

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and quickly combine until you have a rather lumpy batter – don’t overmix, or the pancakes will not be as tender. You will notice that the batter will begin to rise immediately, and you want to try not to deflate it, so handle gently from here. I use a ladle to scoop out the batter onto the hot, greased griddle. These are probably not going to come out perfectly [maybe, as in my case, not even remotely] round, but that is ok. Once you have the pancakes on the griddle, scatter fresh, washed and dried blueberries over the top of each one. You want to be generous, but not overly so, or the pancakes will not be as fluffy. You could mix the berries into the batter, but I like this method better as it ensures the berries are evenly distributed.Cook until the bubbles all around the edges have mostly popped, then turn gently to cook the second side. Serve immediately. I actually just got one of theseand I love it – kept the pancakes nice and hot until they were all cooked, and right through till the end of breakfast.

Serve hot with butter, maple syrup and some fresh berries to scatter over the top. You just get one photo of the finished pancakes – there was a hungry man with a fork standing over them and I wasn’t going to make him wait!Just one more reason to be glad that it’s summer!