The way cheaters make fancy pancakes

My two blackberry bushes have started producing a couple of ripe berries here and there, and since they are rather tart and I’m not a fan of the seeds, I’ve decided to tuck them in to Wookie’s birthday peach cobbler. It was pretty yummy in my biased and rather uncultured opinion.

Having fun with berries brings me to my faux crepes craze. We had a pint of strawberries last week, and after watching a PBS program which the scent of the crepes was pouring from the screen, I needed a quick fix. I sliced my strawberries and sugared them, mixed them and let them sit a few minutes. I already had a humongous bag of pancake mix, so I used a cup of dry mix with enough water that the mixture was runny enough to spread out thin on the pan. Walla. Faux crepes. If you are a true crepe lover, these will not compare, but if you are just looking for something to hold the berry and chocolate treasure, “That’ll do, Donkey. That’ll do..” Equal parts mix and water makes them too thin causing them to tear easily, so make sure your batter can still bubble and have some consistency to it.

I buttered the pan over medium heat, and poured out the mix, rotating the pan to let the batter spread out. One the batter appeared somewhat cooked through to the top, I dropped on some semi-sweet chocolate chips and spooned out the strawberries on one half of the pancake. Then, as if I were going to flip the pancake, I used the spatula to fold it over on itself. After a minute, I flipped it to the other side for another minute. After sliding the faux crepe out of the pan and onto a plate, I sprinkled the top with powdered sugar.

You could easily use any of your garden berries in this, though some might require a little cooking down first depending on the texture you prefer.