Recipe: Macaroni Cheese American Style Pancakes

Macaroni cheese American style pancakes. Yes, you read that right. We like pancakes of all kinds in this house, they’re a quick meal and great for jazzing up leftovers into something new and exciting.

With Shrove Tuesday just around the corner, and half a leftover macaroni cheese waiting to be used up, I decided to combine two of our favourite things into one delicious and rather hearty meal. Topped with bacon (or facon, if you’re veggie like me) and with some good tomatoes on the side, it’s a great family meal and really filling too!

Recipe: Macaroni Cheese American Style Pancakes

Macaroni Cheese American Style Pancakes

Ingredients: 
200g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 or 3 spring onions, finely chopped
200ml milk
3 eggs
25g butter, melted, plus extra for frying

For the topping-
Leftover macaroni cheese
Good Cheddar cheese, grated
Salt, pepper and dried chilli flakes

Recipe: Macaroni Cheese American Style Pancakes

How to make your macaroni cheese American style pancakes:

In a large bowl or jug, whisk all of the pancake ingredients together with some seasoning until smooth. See how it looks, you might want to add more spring onion, or maybe some tinned sweetcorn, which works well, or some herbs like parsley if you have any. These savoury pancakes really lend themselves to being bulked out like this. We like a bit of spice, so we add dried chilli flakes, and you might like to too.

Put a small knob of butter in a large non-stick frying pan over a medium-low heat and cook until the butter has melted. Once the pan is hot, pour around 2 tablespoons of the mixture into the pan. While the first side is cooking, put some of your leftover macaroni cheese over the top of the pancake and sprinkle over some of your grated cheese and press down all over with the back of a spoon. You’ll know when your pancake is ready to flip when you can start to see bubbles forming in the batter.

Once your pancake is ready to turn, use a spatula and carefully flip it over. Cook until the cheese has melted and is crispy. Once you’re happy, turn it out onto a plate and serve however you like. In our house, bacon and tomatoes are the favoured accompaniments, but it would be great with all kinds of things!

Note: Don’t cook your pancakes on too high a heat, you want them to cook all the way through without burning them.

Recipe: Macaroni Cheese American Style Pancakes

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Macaroni Cheese American Style Pancakes

Recipe: Super Easy Shreddies Pancakes

I’ve been making these Shreddies pancakes for a few years now. They’re an easy way of getting some of the good stuff into my son, whilst at the same time he feels like I’ve given him a bit of a treat. Shreddies have long been one of my favourite cereals, they’re delicious just in a bowl with milk, or whipped up into these hearty pancakes.

Shreddies contain wholegrains, and are high in fibre. They’re also fortified with five B vitamins and iron. They’re a healthy start to the day, and if you can spare a couple of bowls of Shreddies from your box, these pancakes are well worth making.

Recipe: Super Easy Shreddies Pancakes

This recipe makes thick, American style pancakes. Making around 6 thick pancakes, they are very filling and this is enough for my little family of three to have a hearty breakfast. You can easily double up the recipe if you have more mouths to feed.

Top them however you like. We like them best with fresh fruit and a drizzle of golden syrup, sometimes with blueberry jam. Sometimes we add squirty cream, sometimes I add some cinnamon to the mix and top them with sweetened apple purée. If you wanted to up the protein, a drizzle of warmed peanut butter would work well with a chopped banana. These pancakes can stand up to being topped with pretty much anything you fancy.

Recipe: Super Easy Shreddies Pancakes

Super Easy Shreddies Pancakes

Ingredients
80g Shreddies cereal
80mls milk
3 medium sized eggs
2 tablespoons of sugar
Oil or butter for frying

Recipe: Super Easy Shreddies Pancakes

How to make your Shreddies pancakes

Using a food processor (I tend to use my Nutribullet for little things like this), blend your Shreddies into powder. If you don’t have a food processor, putting them in a sealed plastic bag and smashing them up with a rolling pin works just as well.

Recipe: Super Easy Shreddies Pancakes

In a large bowl, mix your powdered Shreddies and the rest of the ingredients until they are well combined. I use a whisk for this just to make sure I can beat a bit of air into the mixture. Once you’ve done this, set the bowl aside for ten minutes, this will help it thicken up a bit so you can dollop the pancake batter more easily. When you’re ready to cook your pancakes, give the batter another quick stir and you’re good to go. If you think it is too thick, add a little bit more milk until you’re happy with how it is.

Put some oil or butter in a non-stick frying pan and when the pan is hot, dollop a couple of tablespoons of the thick batter into the pan. This makes one pancake. Have the pan on a low-medium heat; the pancakes are thick and need to cook through without browning them too much. When I see little bubbles start to appear around the edges of the pancake, it’s time to flip it over and cook the other side, I use a fish slice for this. Cook this pancake until it is nicely brown on both sides. Repeat the process until you have used up all the batter.

Super Easy Shreddies Pancakes

Breakfast Ideas: American Style Blueberry Pancakes

Pancakes are for life, not just for Shrove Tuesday. I mean, it’s the law to have pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, but we also like to have them at other times of the year too. We’re big fans of a weekend pancake breakfast and I love them as a little treat. This week, using a Sweetpea Pantry Grainy Brainy Pancake Mix, I knocked up a quick and easy batch of seriously good American Style Blueberry Pancakes.

The best pancakes I’ve ever had were in America, blueberry pancakes covered in syrup and blueberry compote. I’ve tried several times to replicate that joyous plate of pancakes and I’ve cracked it. Thick, fluffy pancakes with my homemade fridge blueberry jam spooned over. They’re a thing of beauty!

Breakfast Ideas: American Style Blueberry Pancakes

The Grainy Brainy Pancake Mix from Sweetpea Pantry is made with protein-rich buckwheat, quinoa, Omega-3 loaded, heart-friendly flaxseed and teff grains for fibre, calcium, iron and vitamin C. It’s much healthier than any pancake mix I could make!

This pancake mix is a great base on which to build flavour. I mixed it up according the instructions on the box and added 100g of fresh or frozen blueberries and half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. I then melted some butter in my good pancake pan and cooked the blueberry pancakes in small batches. The mix made 8 American Style Blueberry Pancakes.

To serve them, I spooned my lovely homemade jam over the top, whipped cream or yogurt are optional but recommended. For extra sweetness if you need it, you could also drizzle over a bit of syrup; this is a treat after all!

Breakfast Ideas: American Style Blueberry Pancakes

The Grainy Brainy Pancake Mix from Sweetpea Pantry (and their other mixes) are available from Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Booths, Marks & Spencer and a range of other retailers. Each mix costs £2.75 and they’re delicious, family friendly mixes with a healthy and nutritious twist.

I was sent a Grainy Brainy Pancake Mix in return for this post. All images and opinions are my own.