Blueberry-Cream Cheese Pancakes

My craving for blueberry-ricotta pancakes can't choose a better time for an attack. I don't have ricotta cheese and I have used my last bag of frozen blueberries when I made my coffee cake. So I opened the fridge hoping for the said ingredients to miraculously appear. They didn't... duh... but I have cream cheese and some blueberry preserves meant for waffle topping. Ha ha ha.... for the nth time, I will not be denied! I hardly cook breakfast here but since we are going home tomorrow, let this be my final or "goodbye, hotel life breakfast". I used my old blueberry-ricotta pancake recipe but here it goes anyway.

Blueberry-Cream Cheese Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 1/12 cups all-purpose flour
4 tbsp sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 jumbo eggs, separated
1 1/4 cups milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
fresh blueberries
3/4 pkg cream cheese, room temperature

Directions:

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and cream cheese until there are no cheese bits remaining, but making sure the batter does not become over liquefied.
Add the sugar, salt, vanilla, and milk.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.
Add to the egg mixture and stir until no lumps remain.
Separately, whip the egg whites for about 4 minutes or until stiff.
Fold the whites into the batter and stir gently until uniformly combined. Let stand for 5 minutes.
Preheat the griddle to medium heat. Using the half cup measuring cup, pour batter onto the lightly-greased griddle.
Add blueberries to each pancake and cook for roughly 2 minutes on each side, or until the pancakes are golden-brown and cooked through.
Re-grease the pan or griddle with canola oil before cooking each pancake.
Stack on a serving plate, garnish with blueberries and serve with butter and maple syrup.


They're fluffy and light with a lot of lift coming from the egg whites which were whipped till stiff before folding with the batter. I didn't have fresh berries for topping but the pancakes did taste of blueberries and cream cheese is a welcome substitute to ricotta cheese. And of course, never to forget good old maple syrup. I don't think I'd eat pancakes without it.