The Home Cook: Golden Delight Pancakes

Sometimes a recipe is more than just a list of ingredients and a how-to set of instructions. Occasionally, just the name of a recipe can bring up an entire childhood worth of warm fuzzy memories. At our house Saturday morning breakfasts were typically a fend for yourself affair, after working until 2am the night before Mom often needed every minute of sleep she could get before heading back to the job for her 11am shift. Most days a few box mix muffins or eggs on toast were as much as you could hope for, if she cooked at all. But every once in a while, the mood was right or she got home early and got a few extra hours of much needed rest. Those days were the ones my sister and I lived for, those were the mornings mom would be up early enough to make THE pancakes.

You knew you were in for a treat when the recipe box slid out of the cupboard. If she pulled out the oil stained, ink smeared card with the picture of a golden pancaked glued to the back the air would nearly tingle with excitement. Of all the breakfast foods my sister and I begged for over the years, this was the most highly anticipated of them all. These were Golden Delight Pancakes. Nicknamed Heart Attack Pancakes in honor of the six of eggs and 1/4 cup oil required to make them, these were the pinnacle of breakfast foods at our house. Marked with Mom's own rating system, the recipe rated an underlined "Very Good"...which is just one step below "Sinfully Delicious" her equivalent to the the near impossible to attain 5-star rating. And so for years, my sister and loitered around the kitchen waiting to eat as late as possible, in hopes that mom would choose that Saturday to rise early and shuffle through her pancake making routine.

If you've eaten breakfast at my house more than twice and you like pancakes, I've made these for you. Of all the pancake recipes in the world this one is by far my favorite, a delicate moist disk of heaven. Perfect for a smear of butter and a generous helping of maple syrup. What makes these so special is their final texture. Very soft and almost egg like, there is nothing cakey about these pancakes. To me they feel like a second cousin to the crepe, so light and airy that melt away in your mouth. The recipe calls for a cup of cottage cheese and this instantly puts most people on the defensive. Cottage cheese? In pancakes? Ewww! But it's worth it, the somewhat maligned ingredient is what gives the cakes their flavor and I suspect their texture as well. Also, you will need a good blender, while we love the cottage cheese, it needs to be pureed into oblivion for the cakes to rise properly. Also, don't use low-fat cottage cheese...it's just not advisable.

Golden Delight Pancakes

1 cup Cottage Cheese

6 Eggs

1/2 cup Flour, sifted

1/4 teaspoon Salt

1/4 cup Oil

1/4 cup Milk

1/2 teaspoon Vanilla

Place ingredients into blender. Blend on high setting using blend or puree mode for 30 seconds, scrape sides of blender and blend for and additional 30 seconds. Or until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Pour batter on to a hot griddle in a 3-4" circle and cook until bubbles begin to break the surface and bottom is a deep golden brown.

Flip the pancake and cook until top is also golden.

If you would like to serve you pancakes all at once, pre-heat your oven to 250 degrees and line a pie tin with a lint free towel or paper towels. As the pancakes finish cooking place them in the oven and cover with another cotton or paper towel.

Makes 4 servings