June 12, 2012

One morning, in an attempt to use some leftover ricotta cheese, I decided to make ricotta pancakes. My ricotta turned out to be well past its prime. Even though I ditched the ricotta, I didn't let the idea of a cheese-studded pancake go. Instead I grabbed some cream cheese.

Unlike ricotta, which melts gently into pancakes, dense cream cheese holds its shape and creates lovely little pockets of warm, oozing cheese throughout the cooked pancakes. Since pancakes are sweet enough, especially when topped with syrup, you don't need to add any sugar to the cream cheese. Simply cut cold cream cheese into cubes, place a few pieces on a cooking pancake, as you would do with berries or chocolate chips, and you're done!

Here's how to make 'em:

Start with cold cream cheese because cold cream cheese is easy to cut. Warm cream cheese is a pain to cut!

Cut into slices.

And cut those slices in half.

Now, cut into little cubes. Don't worry about them all being the same size. It doesn't matter!

It's time to mix the pancake batter.

This is my favorite part! It's *almost* pancake time!

Ladle the batter onto a hot griddle.

Add a few pieces of cream cheese to the cooking pancake. (As you can see, I use my fingers for this.)

Flip and enjoy!