Second breakfast: blueberry pancakes

Ah, insomnia. One of the great things about waking up in 5am on a Saturday is that you can have a bowl of cereal, and then a few hours later enjoy that great Hobbit meal, second breakfast!

Today I made one of my two favorite pancake recipes, my recipe for blueberry pancakes. It's a slightly complicated version, with beaten egg whites, but I think the texture and flavor are worth the bit of extra effort. The annoying thing is that the original recipe (origin unknown) called for 1 1/2 cups of sifted flour. But what kind of crazy person is going to sift flour before breakfast? Or even second breakfast? So I usually remove a bit of flour from that 1 1/2 cups, or add a bit of water to thin the batter before cooking. According to a conversion table, 1 1/2 cups sifted flour should be six ounces or 168 grams. The Europeans and professional bakers all use weights instead of volumes for compactable ingredients like flours, for exactly this reason. Next time I make this recipe I'll try that. I think I can work an electronic scale early in the morning...

Oh, and the other pancake recipe I like, but don't make often, is for strawberry cornmeal pancakes. Made with buttermilk and topped with whipped cream, and with egg whites only, they're even fluffier and lighter than the blueberry pancakes. But they're also a bit more work than I usually want to undertake before noon, and I have to remember to get buttermilk and cream and good fresh strawberries the day before...

Ah, I'm looking forward to elevenses now!