I was in Denver, Colorado last week to watch D play a frisbee tournament, but ended up not watching too much frisbee. Another of the players had a 6-year old daughter who kindly accompanied me to some Denver-area restaurants. We joined another friend there for Saturday brunch at a restaurant called Snooze on the recommendation of a co-worker in New York who used to work there. She said, "You simply must try the sweet potato pancakes." So we did. The entire meal was delicious (we all shared the sweet potato pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, and poached eggs with hash and English muffins--the best I've ever had in my life, and discussed in a separate blog entry here). But I was underwhelmed by the sweet potato pancakes, so I just had to try my hand at them. This weekend, we went to our friend's country house in Pennsylvania and spent time with a mutual friend who was up from Florida. D thought the sweet potato pancakes would be too heavy for a summer morning, but I was determined to make them better than Snooze did. They turned out really well, and we couldn't have asked for better company or a setting--at a lovely table on a porch by a noisy river. I served them with sweet chicken and roast pepper sausage, honey-cinnamon butter, pecans, and maple syrup.
Sweet Potato Pancakes2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
3 tsp baking soda
6 tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp nutmeg
3 cups milk, 3 eggs, 5 tbsp butter
1 1/2 cup boiled or roasted mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Mix dry ingredients together (you can even do this days ahead of time, or before a trip to impress a host if you go visiting). Stir in the moist ingredients until well-blended. Ensure that the batter is drippy enough, but not too drippy. Heat a generous amount of oil in a pan and drop in approximately 1/4 cup or 3 tbsp of the batter until browned on either side. Serve with honey-cinnamon butter, a sprinkling of chopped pecans, and heated maple syrup.
