Strawberry Star-Shaped Buttermilk Pancakes

Remember how I needed buttermilk for the cornbread I made last week, and how excited I was to have a bit leftover? Well the first thing that jumped into my mind to put it to use was buttermilk pancakes. Luckily for me, even though my very favourite Brunch cookbook has not made it in the last three of mum's parcels, I did have one book which offered a good buttermilk pancake recipe.  Now I know I said I was off the Donna Hay train this week but it seems like I'm still hanging from the caboose, as this recipe comes from Donna's book Fruit.   The recipe given here uses blueberries and bananas, but the strawberries were on special and just looking so red and juicy and full of summer memories that I caved and bought them instead. Then I remembered that I had a star-shaped pancake mold and I was set - strawberry star-shaped sounds that much better too! 

My husband may have a taste for chocolate but he isn't really one for sweet breakfasts so he wasn't too unhappy to learn I was making myself pancakes for brunch this morning. So after a long walk in the sunshine (woohoo vitamin D) with Mr Ralph I was back in the kitchen and straight into it.  I actually only made a third of the recipe below since I was only making breakfast for myself (much to Ralph's disgust) and it was still one hell of a hefty portion. Luckily I was hungry.   These are basically just straightforward pancakes, only the buttermilk lends a slightly richer, sweeter flavour which works well with sweet toppings. The hardest part of my breakfast this morning was getting each pancake out of the star mold without breaking the shape so that I could get the next on the go. 

To serve I simply stacked my little stars, topped with sliced strawberries, a light dusting of icing sugar and some maple syrup. Voila! Sunday brunch.

2 cups all purpose flour, sifted

3 tsp baking powder, sifted

1/2 cup superfine sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 cups milk

3/4 cup buttermilk

75g butter, melted

blueberries and sliced bananas

maple syrup

Place the flour, baking power and sugar in a bowl. Place the egg, milk, buttermilk, and butter in a separate bowl and whisk to combine. Add the milk mixture to the flour and whisk until smooth.  Heat a greased medium non-stick pan over medium heat.  Pour 1/3 cups of the mixture into the pan and cook, in batches, until bubbles appear on the surface. Turn the pancakes and cook 1 minutes or until golden. Repeat until all the mix is used. Top with blueberries and sliced bananas, pour over maple syrup and serve.