Ahhhhh brunch.
Remember when every weekend meant meeting up with friends for coffee and eggs? Boy I miss that. Since March, I think I’ve been out for brunch exactly twice, and I’m certainly not hosting any.
Brunch is a big part of my social life, and I miss it.
Once place I love to go for brunch (in the before times, anyway, I haven’t been there in a long time) is Lift Breakfast Bakery in Lower Lonsdale. They make a really great croissant, but they are also known for their lemon ricotta pancakes.
I know it seems weird to put cheese in pancakes. Like, in theory, it seems like a bad idea; wouldn’t it weigh them down, make them heavier? That’s never the goal with pancakes, you always want them to be light and fluffy.
Well, there’s something about this combination that just works. It gives the pancakes a rich, almost cheesecake-y texture. And that feels just right to this girl who has been watching The Golden Girls since it recently appeared on Prime.
Hey–we gotta steal these moments of joy and lightness and happiness wherever we can these days. There’s a lot of heaviness in the world right now. Eat some pancakes. Have brunch with your bubble. Celebrate the little things.
Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
(note: this is a fairly small recipe, serves about 2)
Ingredients
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 lemon, zested and then juiced
- ¾ cups flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ cup ricotta, drained if watery
- 2 tbsp oil or melted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla
Method:
- Place the milk in a small bowl and add the lemon juice to it. Allow to sit for a few minutes while you put together the dry ingredients.
- In a large bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and salt, and mix to combine.
- Separate the egg and toss the yolk in with the milk/lemon juice mixture. Place the white in a separate bowl and beat until stiff peaks form (I did this step in my stand mixer, but if you don’t have one, a hand mixer will do. Doing this manually with a whisk will take a long time, but it’s doable).
- Add the ricotta, vanilla and oil or butter to the wet ingredients and whisk to combine.
- Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet to it, then mix to combine. Finally, gently fold the egg whites into the batter.
- Drop by ¼ cupfulls onto a hot, greased griddle, and allow to cook until the bottom is set and there are bubbles forming on the top. Flip and allow to cook on the other side.
- Serve with maple syrup, blueberries or blueberry syrup/compote/jam and lemon curd if you have it.