Orange and Cottage Cheese Pancakes

I've got to tell you that this recipe is ridiculously delicious.  It makes six pancakes and, the first time I made them, the two of us ate all six at a single sitting.   My husband then complained that there weren’t more. 

I first made these pancakes because breakfast around our house has been pretty routine lately.  I mean it’s been nutritious and all, I’d just fallen into kind of a rut.  We seemed to be cycling between eggs, oatmeal, and muffins with nothing new on the horizon.

I’d been seeing recipes for lemon and cottage cheese pancakes around the net and they looked pretty good, but I didn’t have any lemons in the house.  I did have oranges though.  I’d bought a ten pound box of them.  Beautiful and sweet, they were just asking to be used.

I read through several recipes and decided that Cooking with Amy’s lemon pancakes were nearest to what I was looking for.  I doubled the recipe, subbed in my navel oranges for lemons, and added some cinnamon.  That’s it.  Easy peasy.  Huge flavour payoff for a small amount of effort.

To make Orange and Cottage Cheese Pancakes, you’ll need:

• The zest and juice from 2 medium-sized navel oranges
• 2 eggs, separated
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 2 Tablespoons Canola oil
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine the orange zest, orange juice, egg yolks, sugar, cottage cheese and oil.  Mix well.

Stir together the flour and cinnamon and then add them to the orange and cottage cheese mixture.  Mix until well combined.

Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.

Lighten the batter by gently folding in about 1/3 of the beaten egg whites.

Add the lightened batter to the remaining beaten egg whites and fold it in, retaining as much volume in the egg whites as possible. Don’t over-mix it.  It’s okay if you see some small streaks of egg white still unincorporated when you’re done.

Cook the pancakes immediately, before the egg whites lose their volume.

Ladle the batter, in approximate half cup portions, onto a medium hot, non-stick griddle.  You may need to use the back of the ladle to spread the batter out a bit.

Cook the pancakes until they are lightly browned on the bottom and a few bubbles appear around the edges of each cake.  Flip them and cook them again, until the second side is browned too.

This batter is sweet enough that I was happy to eat my pancakes topped with nothing but a little butter.  My husband had his with butter and warm maple syrup.  They’d be great topped with fruit and whipped cream or sprinkled with a little powdered sugar and dressed with a squeeze of orange or lemon juice.

Next time I make these, I’m going to double or maybe even triple the batch so that I have some for the freezer.  They’ll reheat in just a few minutes in the oven and would be a welcome treat on a busy morning.