Wholemeal pikelets with blueberry compote

This morning, as we were lazing in bed, S started daydreaming aloud about “American breakfasts”. She quickly clarified that she didn’t mean a New Yorker’s breakfast, i.e. bagels and cream cheese, donuts and coffee, etc. She was talking about things that you didn’t buy rushing from the subway station to the office, but things you cooked for your family, things that when served up “hot off the pan” put smiles on faces, simple yummy staples like bacon and eggs and blueberry pancakes.

To make her happy–and also because once she mentioned it, I started craving it also–I decided to whip up some blueberry pancakes. To make S even happier, I looked for the healthiest pancake recipe I could find. Enter Bill Granger and his wonderful book, bills food. On page 30 of this Sydneysider celeb’s book, I found a wonderful, easy recipe for Wholemeal Pikelets with Butter, Lemon and Sugar. All I had to do was follow the pikelet recipe, leaving out the butter, lemon and sugar topping and replace that with some delicious blueberry compote that S had made a couple days earlier. It took only a few minutes to prep the batter and another few to make the pikelets and serve them. I’m happy to report that S was beaming, not only because of how good these tasted but also because we had found a great way to use our wholemeal flour to make a relatively healthy (yet still yummy) breakfast.

Pikelets (makes 12), from bills food by Bill Granger

125g wholemeal flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons raw sugar
1 egg
170ml milk
butter, for greasing the pan

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the sugar and stir. Add the egg and milk and whisk until smooth. Heat a large, non-stick pan over medium heat and brush with butter. Spoon tablespoons of the batter into the pan. Cook each for 1-2 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface. Then flip and cook for another 30 seconds.

Blueberry Compote, from The Last Course by Claudia Fleming

2.5 cups blueberries
1 tablespoon sugar

Mix 1 cup of the berries with the sugar and cook over low heat until the berries have popped and broken down, about 5 minutes. Strain the cooked berries into a bowl and discard the solids. Add the remaining berries and toss to combine.