Oh how life gets away from us some days… here we are firmly into the first full week of July!.. I am so excited to be welcoming Teri Sontra from Purple Moose Designs onto the BadAss team! Today she is going to be sharing with us a way to get our BadAss selves out of bed and actually have a great breakfast before heading out into the big wide world. She might also be passing on a recipe for amazing cookies… {ahem}
I don’t know about you but for me breakfast is the hardest meal, I need easy and delish without the need of a lot of brain cells… this totally works!
They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Seriously? Who has time to make a healthy breakfast in the morning? The kids need to be dragged through their routines to get off on time, the spouse can’t seem to find their “whatever” and the pets are always on the wrong side of the door and need something. It’s really just easier to buy a box of frozen pancakes at the store and let everyone grab one or two. Does this sound familiar? What if I told you that you could have pancakes/waffles/french toast made with ingredients that you can pronounce and have it ready in the same amount of time that the frozen store bought stuff takes. Would you be interested? All it takes is a small (and I do mean small!) amount of forethought. Let me show you how…
Today I made pancakes. No special recipe, just the one from Aunt Betty’s book (doesn’t everyone have an Aunt Betty?) and here’s the trick…I quadruple the recipe. That’s right, 4 times what the recipe calls for. All you invest is the extra time to measure out 4 cups of flour instead of 1 and an extra 10-15 minutes of cooking time. The result is a huge pile of yummy pancakes! Freeze ‘em up and you can reheat them whenever you want. You can also customize them to your own tastes. Chocolate chip and blueberry are the norm at our house but we have done banana, apple and some of the other variants in Aunt Betty’s recipe.
The Details:
Make pancakes according to your favorite recipe (just multiply everything times 4) and cook as usual. Place pancakes on a cooling rack. When they’ve 
cooled off, pop the whole rack in the freezer. Once they’re frozen put them into a large ziplock bag and return to the freezer. It’s just that simple. To reheat – put 2-3 pancakes on a plate and microwave (straight from the freezer) for 30 seconds. Turn them over and microwave again for another 30 seconds. Depending on your microwave, you may need an additional 30 seconds. Remove, add butter and syrup and dive in. Breakfast in one minute! Even the kids can do it. You can do the same exact thing with waffles or french toast. When reheating waffles I place them in the microwave for 30 seconds to thaw a bit and then pop them in the toaster so they stay crispy on the outside.
Pancake Tips:
Pancakes are pretty straight forward but there are a few tips to make great ones.
- If you want fluffy pancakes (and who doesn’t?) don’t overmix the batter. Lumps that are large pea/small marble size or smaller will disappear by the time you eat them. Trust me, its magic!
- Use butter on your griddle for a nice golden brown color. Butter always makes things better.
- Put your pancakes on the cooling rack upside down if you add chocolate chips, berries or other additions. Otherwise they’ll fall out while cooling…ask me how I know…
Speaking of chocolate chips…I have a special blend that I use anytime I need chips. One bag each of milk chocolate, semi-sweet, dark and bittersweet. Sometimes I’ll add in white chocolate or butterscotch too. Mix ‘em all together and measure out however much you need for your recipe. Life is too short for one kind of chocolate.
Hmm…since I mentioned my special blend of chocolate chips maybe I should share another use for them! When I was deciding what to do for my first BadAss In The Kitchen post I was torn between breakfast and dessert. One is the most important meal and the other is, well, dessert! Let’s do both…here is my recipe for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever. Certainly not low-cal (starts with one pound of butter…) and it does take a little time but it makes boat loads of cookies. I’ve even frozen little balls of dough to put in ice cream. I’ll share that recipe sometime in the future. Ooh, maybe with my boozy ice cream… Enjoy!
Need a printable?.. click right here and you will be baking in no time!
Maddie back here again…. can I just say that I fully endorse the boozy Ice cream notion?…. anyone else???
Terri Sontra is a quilt pattern designer, retreat hostess and Head Moose at Purple Moose Designs https://www.purplemoosedesigns.com, an online quilt shop where you can find batik fabrics, patterns for all skill levels and other unique quilting items. In her spare time Terri loves to cook. There’s nothing better than an afternoon playing with new foods or trying out new recipes. Day-to-day cooking (every…single…day…) is not her favorite thing to do, there are too many quilts to make! She has learned lots of recipes and tricks to get a healthy meal on the table quickly for her family and will share those with everyone.