Tender Pancakes

Do you know that feeling when you re-discover how good something is, and then you binge? I think I'm at the point where I can't stop making pancakes for breakfast. Since last week, I have made pancakes three times. Three!

Well, who can blame me? My usual morning routine consists of waking up at 6:30am and rushing to catch a bus, my breakfast consists of cold cereal, a piece of toast, or half a bagel. Not exactly Mmmm worthy.

So when I found a quick and easy pancake recipe, I just couldn't stop. I wanted a nice hot breakfast with fruits and maple syrup!

Tender Pancakes

Recipe adapted from Gale Gand's Brunch!

(Makes about eight to ten 3- to 4-inch wide pancakes)

1 cup of all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon of sugar

3/8 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 tablespoons of baking powder

1 large egg

1 cup of milk

2 tablespoons of canola oil

unsalted butter, for cooking

1/3 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional but highly recommended)

1. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.
2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg with a fork and then mix in the milk and oil.
3. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and combine. It doesn't have to be smooth, lumps are actually encouraged! If you want, add the chocolate chips into the batter.
4. Use a ladle, spoon, or transfer the batter to a pitcher for easy pouring.
5. Heat your griddle/pan over medium heat. Melt 1 teaspoon of butter on it.
6. Pour 2 to 3 tablespoons of the batter. Watch for bubbles that rise to the top of the pancake. This is generally the time to flip! You can also take a peek with your spatula to see if the other side is golden brown.
7. Flip your pancake and when it is golden brown, it is ready to be served!

Those are the instructions from the cookbook, but I found doing a one bowl method to work just as well. I added all the ingredients at once and then gave it a good stir and it was ready to go!

Don't forget to add fresh fruit and maple syrup! Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Wordless Wednesday: July 28, 2010

Tokyo Bakery

Tokyo Bakery
4385 Sheppard Avenue East, Unit 7
Scarborough, ON M1S 1T9
(416) 335-5500

My mom, aunt, brother, cousin, and I had lunch today and stopped in Tokyo Bakery (same plaza). I have to say, Howard was the one that introduced us to this hidden gem. He had heard co-workers rave about the cakes there, so we had tried it last year, and bought one for a birthday celebration.

Since then, my parents have been ordering cakes from them. They are fresh, tasty, and look very pretty. The cakes come in different fruit/cheesecake flavours and are not too sweet - the perfect amount of sugar for my non-sweet-tooth parents (and their friends). So far, the favourite of the family is their blueberry cheesecake.

We couldn't resist taking a peek to see what was at the bakery, so imagine our delight when we spotted these tiny cakes in the back. We quickly asked if those were for sale (a lot of the cakes were already claimed from pre-orders), and she said "yes!" We patiently waited the 5 minutes for the baker to put on the finishing touches. And that is the story of how we ended up with 5 different flavoured "cut cakes" to try. =)

Raspberry Mango Cheesecake

Pina Colada

Mango and Chocolate

Blueberry Cheesecake

Mango and Tapioca
I told my mom the next time she made tapioca, I will try to incorporate it into cake!

As a blogger, I informed everyone that I had to take photos first. So no one was allowed to take a bite yet! Once I snapped these photos, we all dug in. The cut cakes were gone within the hour, probably less... maybe less than 30 minutes! =)

If you are looking to get a cake from Tokyo Bakery, I would highly recommend that you call ahead and place an order. They don't have many cakes in the display case, so you might be out of luck that day!

Purkel Cupcakes

Here is another dozen cupcakes for Purkel Products Inc. It is a pretty cool company (I went there for Take Your Kid to Work Day... except my parents don't work there). We made vanilla cupcakes with chocolate ganache icing topped with fondant fruit decorations.

Above image, starting top left going clockwise: Grapes, peach, strawberry, apple, cherries, lime, banana, pear, orange, lemon, and Purkel logo in the centre!

Strawberry!

Grapes!

Apple!

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