Hand To Mouth

The breakfasts J. and I make are usually savory—aside from our love of all things egg-related, we’re typically drawn towards foods that skew towards the saltier side.

But yesterday at brunch (I might tell you where our favorite spot is someday, but I haven’t worked up the stones to reveal it just yet), we found ourselves gazing hungrily at the light golden waffles our friend A. had ordered. Glazed with honeyed maple syrup and covered with a thick carpet of spiced apples, they staggered us into stealing multiple forkfuls from his plate in between bites of our chilaquiles and huevos rancheros.

Unsurprisingly, when we found ourselves in a pantry-cleaning mood this morning, we threw together as many sweet and fruity things as we could, ending up with a stack of lacy, buttery pancakes and a pleasantly oozy apricot compote. The pancakes had a satisfying crunch from a handful of ground and sliced almonds that we impulsively added to the batter. They were mighty fine. I’m already thinking about the next time we make them, and how some tweaks—maybe a little orange zest, vanilla or cardamom—might work in the batter.

The best thing about these two recipes is that the dishes are so easily adaptable to what you might have on hand—for example, I could see pecans subbed for the almonds; buttermilk, soy milk, applesauce or yogurt instead of sour cream; almost any other kind of dried or fresh fruit in the compote; and so on.

Almond Pancakes
Makes 8 3-inch pancakes

Ingredients
2 eggs
1/4 cup sliced almonds, plus 1-1/2 tbsp extra
1/4 cup sour cream
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp butter, cut into 4 cubes
pinch of sea salt, plus extra (optional)

Directions

Grind 1/4 cup almonds in a food processor until they resemble coarse cornmeal in texture. Combine with eggs in a large mixing bowl. Add sour cream, sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt (if using). Whisk until smooth.

In a large skillet, melt 1/4 tablespoon butter. Fry pancakes in skillet, 2 at a time. Repeat until all batter is used. Sprinkle warm pancakes with a little more sea salt, if desired.

Apricot Compote
Makes 1 cup compote

NOTE: We used organic dried Turkish apricots, which aren’t treated with sulfites and are consequently a dark mahogany color. If you use regular dried apricots, the compote will be a sunnier, more appealing color (but heeeeey, sulfites).

Ingredients
10 dried apricots
1/2 cup boiling water
juice of 1/2 lemon

Directions
Put apricots in a small bowl. Cover with boiling water and let stand for five minutes. Test with a fork: apricots should be very, very soft. Blitz apricots, water and lemon juice in food processor until consistency is uniform. Spoon over pancakes.