When I was a kid, the biggest treat In the world was when Mom bought donuts for breakfast, and if she bought chocolate milk…..the kind already mixed ……heaven! Now, not any old donut would do…….oh no not for us! It had to be donetts……..those little tiny ones. Powered sugar or chocolate frosted……..hmmm.
When I was making these Baked French Vanilla Glazed Donuts, I was thinking about how many stories I have with donuts in them.
The neighbor girl and I got in big trouble one summer for getting home after dark……where were we?……..frosting donuts. There was a little corner gas station-store close to where we lived, and they made their own donuts. We hung around at this place, and if I remember correctly, one of our babysitters worked there. Of course, her being a teenager, and us wanting to be teenagers we would do anything to hang with the big kids. Well, when she asked if we’d wanted to help frost donuts……….duh!!!! Of course we did…………and of course we lost track of time. To our horror it was dark out. Now, the rule was, you had your bike and your ass home before dark. Well our asses nor our bikes were home, and when we got home……..lets just say there was a welcoming party……..so, that was the end of our frosting donuts.
Right before we got married, Tim had to have an outpatient surgery, before they let him go home he had to eat something…….they brought him juice and a chocolate frosted donut. We both had much better eating habits before we got married……….Tim was just shy of being a vegetarian. Imagine my surprise when I saw him not only eating a chocolate frosted donut, but the look on his face was of sheer bliss……..now, I know he was medicated, but I think at that exact moment he would have rather married the donut……..I saw a new side to my soon to be husband…..LOL
Raspberry Greek Yogurt Pancakes with Homemade Vanilla Syrup
Raspberry Greek Yogurt Pancakes with Homemade Vanilla Syrup
Wow……that is a mouth full……a mouth full of yummy flavor. These pancakes rocked, and the syrup was sticky sweet vanilla goodness.
Now, having said that, I am not huge fan of pancakes. I mentioned this in my post for Cinnamon Pancakes with Brown Sugar Bacon Pancakes would not be my choice…….I’m more of a French toast girl…………but you know me, anything French…….but I saw a picture of some blueberry pancakes and for some reason I thought they looked delicious. Oh, and I am not a big fan of blueberries either…….wonder why they looked so good?
Maybe they got me thinking about breakfast…..after all it was Sunday morning. Tim was at work and I wanted to make him breakfast. Now, he likes pancakes, and since he was working on a Sunday, he needed a special treat!
So, me not being a fan of either pancakes or blueberries, I needed to switch it all up…….if I do have pancakes I like buttermilk pancakes the best, but I didn’t have buttermilk. I know you can do the vinegar in milk trick but to me it just isn’t the same……. but I did have Greek yogurt…..would it work?…..darn tooting it worked……like a charm.
Raspberries were on sale when I got groceries, so of course I bought them and they replaced the blueberries. In my opinion raspberries need almonds, so I used almond flour with regular flour and a bit of almond extract. Once I mixed the wet and dry pancake ingredients, I folded in some slivered almonds and raspberries. I cooked them on a flat griddle sprayed with non stick spray. They puffed up beautifully.
I really couldn’t see putting maple syrup on these. I found tons of ideas for syrups, but nothing sounded quite like what I wanted, until I started to see vanilla syrup recipes……now that sounded like just the ticket. Two kinds of sugar, a bit of cornstarch to thicken, some water, and for that special vanilla taste, a vanilla bean. I scraped out the inside of the bean and put it in the syrup and put the bean pod in for a little extra vanilla taste……it turned out perfect. I had never had flavored syrup before………but this was totally awesome.
When Tim got home …….after he took these fabulous pictures for you to enjoy…….we had what were the best pancakes I have ever had……..fluffy, almondy, raspberry goodness with that homemade syrup ………..there is some of the syrup left, maybe I will make pancakes this coming Sunday!!!!!!
In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, almond flour, sugar, and lemon zest. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together yogurt and milk. Add egg and almond extract and mix until smooth.
Combine wet and dry ingredients. Fold in slivered almonds and raspberries.
Heat a frying pan or griddle over medium heat; spray with non stick cooking spray. Drop batter by ¼ cup portions onto heated pan. Cook 2 minutes, flip and cook for 1-2 more minutes. Serve with Homemade Vanilla Pancake Syrup.
In a small saucepan mix sugars,and cornstarch, add water. Bring to a boil. While the mixture is coming to a boil scrape the inside of the the vanilla bean. Place the inside of the beans and the pod in the cooking liquid,and reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and cool slightly before serving on pancakes.
