Ah, late sleepy mornings! Little Mister has been surprising me by waking up a little later than usual, and by doing so I can bake up some yummy treats for breakfast! Yesterday was banana chocolate muffins (didn’t go over as well as I had hoped) and this morning was sweet potato pancakes! These are so fluffy and taste like a dessert in the sunrise! I *love* pancakes, and these are a nice change from our usual plain flapjacks!
(Sweet and Fluffy) Sweet Potato Pancakes
12 oz sweet potato, cooked and mashed (about 2 medium)
1 ½ cups + 1 tablespoon AP flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons brown sugar
(Optional – two teaspoons pumpkin pie spice {which is nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice, and ginger)
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs – beaten
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/4 cup melted butter
Garnish: Toasted chopped pecans and warm maple syrup
The night before you want to make these, bake the sweet potatoes until soft. Let them cool then peel off the skins and mash. Store in the fridge overnight. In the morning, remove them and place in a large bowl. Add the butter, milk, sugar, and eggs. In a second bowl mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, and spice if you are using it. Fold the dry mixture into the sweet potato mixture, and let sit for 15 mins while you heat up your skillet. Using a ¼ cup scoop, drop dollops of the batter onto the skillet. They should fluff up and have some bubble holes in the top. Flip them over and cook the other side. They take a little bit to cook, and you have to watch them so they don’t burn. Transfer to a serving platter. Using a ¼ scoop I was able to get about 16 pancakes. Freeze any leftovers. Or eat them!
A Look Back: 3 weeks before Little Mister was born, I was hard at work making my first croquembouche. I had wanted to make one for the longest time, and had it set in my head that my “Baby Brunch” was the event to try it out. I had made the choux a few days before and froze them, and made the crème patissière the night before. The day of, I mixed sweetened whipping cream in with the pastry cream to lighten it, and give it an airy texture. The caramel was the most annoying part, trying to find the right consistency to hold the puffs together yet still be edible (i.e., not super solid rock hard!) Finally, I cooked the caramel to a hard ball stage and “spun” it around the mini tower. 
