Happy Independence Day!  Today’s ideas are all about adding some red, white and blue flare to your morning meal.  If you have some berries and bananas, you have the power to transform an ordinary breakfast into an All-American Fourth of July Spectacular Breakfast.  Add some whipped cream or yogurt and the patriotic possibilities are endless.

The easiest (and maybe most fun) thing you can do is arrange berries to make an American flag pattern on waffles, pancakes or French toast.

Here, you can see combinations of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, banana slices and whipped cream.  Those are Apple Cinnamon Waffles in the pictures.  The warm apple pieces in the waffles tasted amazing with the fresh berries on top.  For standard waffles, I’d recommend the following recipes: Best Waffles Ever (quick waffles without yeast) or Overnight Waffle Batter (yeast waffles from a batter that needs to rest at least 7 hours).

In a matter of seconds, you can turn ordinary toast into USA-mazing toast.  A spread of cream cheese gives you a white canvas to work with.  Strawberry jam is used to make the red stripes of the flag which are offset by banana pieces to make the white stripes.  I especially love this idea because it’s so kid-friendly. Wee ones will have a blast making a flag out of a piece of toast.  You don’t really need a recipe for this, but here’s one anyway:  American Flag Fruit Toast.

A super cute way to add Yankee Doodle yumminess to breakfast is to make Fourth of July Berry Bites.  These are just large strawberries with the stems removed and the bottoms sliced so they’ll stand upright.  Fill the hole where the stem was with whipped cream and top with a blueberry.  This idea is awesome because you can use it as a garnish with eggs and omelets and still get some red, white and blue on the plate.

A parfait is a great way to add patriotism and nutrition to your breakfast. In the picture above, you see Fourth Of July Breakfast Parfaits made with vanilla yogurt, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries.  You can easily adjust this recipe to include bananas, cherries, whipped cream or any other ingredients that match the colors of the holiday.  For a bigger twist, try using oatmeal in place of the yogurt.

Now that we’ve conquered using fruit in its God-given form, we can graduate to fruit compotes as seen in the Red, White & Blueberry Pancakes above.  On the Fourth of July, I’m all about making a beautiful breakfast quickly so I can go out and enjoy the day.  So, I’ll use jam, water and berries to make compotes in half the time as other compote recipes.  You simply cook down about 1/3 cup of jam with a couple of Tablespoons of water until it’s thin and fluid.  Stir in berries and turn off the heat.  In few minutes, it’ll start to thicken again and, just like that, you have a fruit topping.

The toppings in the recipe above can also be used on French toast and waffles.  You can also swirl the compotes into oatmeal for Oat-rageously American Hot Cereal.

With liberty and breakfast for all… I wish you a very happy Fourth of July!

Also see:

Red, White & Blue Oatmeal Parfaits

As American As Apple Pie Oatmeal

It’s lemony, sweet and delicious.  It’s easy to make and goes with just about anything.  But what’s up with that name… Lemon Curd.  I like the “lemon” part, but a “curd” is something I expect to find in cottage cheese.  I don’t even like when “curd” is used to describe pieces of a scrambled egg.   Maybe it’s because it rhymes with “turd” or that the letters so easily rearrange to spell “crud”.  It’s definitely not a great word to describe the lemony, smooth, flavorful, custard-like spread that’s so easy to love.

I’ve been experimenting a lot with lemon curd lately.  I’ve made a couple of homemade versions, including one that’s prepared in the microwave.  In all cases, lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, eggs and butter are combined and gently cooked until you suddenly have a beautifully thick substance.

In recent days, I’ve had lemon curd on pancakes, in pancakes, on toast, on English muffins, as part of a fruit parfait, as a filling for pastries and that’s just for starters.  Anything you might use jam for, you can use lemon curd instead.

In grocery and specially stores, jars of lemon curd often cost more than five dollars.  By my estimate, it costs about 80 cents to make it at home.  It was even cheaper for me because of where I live.  A lot of my neighbors have lemon trees and it’s not uncommon to see a basket of lemons on someone’s sidewalk with a sign that says, “Free Lemons.”  I grabbed about a dozen free lemons last week and, as you’ll see from the variety of recipes that follow, I went a little lemon-loco.

As they say, a rose by any other name smells just as sweet.  So it is that lemon curd by any other name tastes just as sweet, although a new name would probably be more descriptive.  Here’s a selection of recipes for lemon curd and recipes that use lemon curd… or as I’m calling it now… Lemon Delight, or Lemon Magic… how about Lemon Ecstasy.  On second thought, those all sound names you’d find at the medical marijuana store.  Anyway, here’s some Lemon Curd recipes I hope you’ll like.

Homemade Lemon Curd

I swear by this recipe.  I’d put a jar of this against the store-bought stuff any day.  It requires only 4 ingredients (if you count lemon zest and lemon juice as one) and takes only 15 or 20 minutes to make.

Microwave Lemon Curd

Do yourself a favor and make the recipe right before this one.  This is a weird case where a microwave version of a recipe actually takes longer than the stove top version.  It was rewarding to know I could make lemon curd this way, but it wasn’t as rewarding for my mouth when compared to the traditional preparation method.

Lemon Pancakes Topped With Whipped Cream & Lemon Curd

If you want pancakes with big lemon flavor, put lemon zest and lemon juice in the batter and then top them with some lemon curd.  Of coarse, you could top any kind of pancakes with the good stuff, but why not go crazy.  As the saying goes… when life give you lemons, make lemon curd and lemon pancakes.

Kolache Pastries Filled With Lemon Curd

The recipe for this Czechoslovakian pastry was handed down from my Grandmother.  You can fill them with any favorite jam or preserve.  But if you have a jar of homemade lemon curd handy, I recommend giving it a try.  It might take some practice to get the dough the right shape and thickness, but they always taste amazing even when they don’t look amazing.

Lemon Coffee Cake

This coffee cake has a creamy, fruity center from lemon curd and raspberries.  Vanilla yogurt in the batter assures that it’s moist and flavorful throughout.

Mock Lemon Danish With Vanilla Yogurt & Lemon Curd

I was really surprised how good this was.  At first look, it seemed kind of lame.  It’s an English muffin topped with cinnamon-infused yogurt and lemon curd.  It’s insane how much it tastes like a pastry.

Funny story… when I took photos of the mock pastry, the yogurt didn’t look good in the pictures.  Being a clever, sneaky guy, I replaced the yogurt with vanilla pudding so it would appear to have more substance in the pics.  That’s when I made one of the best discoveries of my life.  Lemon curd mixed with vanilla pudding is… how do I say this without overselling it… it’s orgasmic!

Remember… this is just a small sampling of the things you can do with lemon curd.  Try it on waffles.  Spread it between two pieces of French toast for Lemon-Stuffed French Toast.  Dip a banana in it.  Or try my favorite thing to do with homemade lemon curd… give a jar to a friend.

I recently bought a loaf of Wonder Bread (rare for me as I usually go for whole grain). I used half the loaf to make Waffle Maker French Toast earlier this week.  Today, I wanted to do something unique with the remaining slices so I tracked down an old recipe for Austrian Bread Pancakes and modified it a little.

These pancakes remind me very much of bread pudding.  The inside is moist and almost custard-like (think of perfectly prepared French toast).  Currants, almonds and cinnamon provide an almost holiday-like flavor.  Made with torn pieces of bread, this is actually a griddled form of bread pudding.  So let’s change the name.  I present to you… Bread Pudding Pancakes!  Now watch me turn bread into pancakes…

The ingredients are white bread, apple cider, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, currants (or raisins), almond meal and butter.  Not pictured is flour – a late addition I included when the consistency of my batter seemed too thin.

First, you remove the crusts from the bread and rip the slices into small pieces.  I’m saving the crusts to make bread crumbs for later.  Next, you pour apple cider over the torn bread, give it a quick stir and let it set for about 10 minutes.

To make the batter, you start by mixing the egg yolks with the sugar and cinnamon.  Stir it up until you get an even consistency.

Now, you incorporate the bread.  The messy part of this recipe is draining as much liquid from the bread as possible.  I started using a strainer, but soon discovered the best way to do it was to squeeze the hell out of it with my hands.  The bread will still be quite wet.

So, add the drained bread to the sugar and yolk mixture followed by the currants, almond meal and flour.  Mix it up really well.  Next, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold that into the batter.  This recipe has no baking powder, so all the lift comes from the beaten egg whites.

Recipe Reality:  At this point, things get a little tricky.  These pancakes are difficult to flip so you have to 1) make the pancakes fairly small – about 2 tablespoons batter per pancake and 2) do a swift slip-n-flip motion with the spatula when the bottom is browned.  My first batch of pancakes were too tender and busted all up.  That’s when I initially added a little flour to the batter and everything was great after that.  (The linked recipe below has been adjusted to add the flour.)  As per usual, you cook the pancakes until they’re browned on both sides.  It took about 2 minutes for the first side and 1 minute for the other side.

The tenderness of these pancakes might make them tricky to work with, but that aspect is also what makes these pretty terrific.

Hopefully, the picture above gives you a sense of the bread pudding-like texture.  To complete the dish, I made some homemade applesauce to act as a topping.  A little bit of butter also helped these taste super good (as butter tends to do).

Here’s a card I whipped up to show how easy it is to make your own homemade applesauce:

And that’s how you turn bread into pancakes.  Join me in a few weeks as I attempt to turn orange juice into breakfast wine.  It’ll be a real miracle if I can pull that off. But that’s what I used to think about these scrumptious pancakes until I tried it.

“Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle that one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar.” – Pablo Picasso

“Miracles happen everyday, change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you.” – Jon Bon Jovi

This post is a companion piece to the following recipes on MrBreakfast.com:

Austrian Bread Pancakes (aka Bread Pudding Pancakes)

Homemade Applesauce (Pancake Topping)

This is so easy, it feels like a magic trick.  Take two apples and… abracadabra!  Five minutes later, you have a delicious Cinnamon Maple Apple Topping for your pancakes, waffles or French toast.  The combination of baked apple, maple and cinnamon results in a a warm, autumn-like flavor that adds a cozy, fresh finish to almost any breakfast.

Cinnamon Maple Apple Pancake Topping (In The Microwave)

• 2 medium apples
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
• 3 dashes of cinnamon

Peel, core and slice the apples.  Place in a microwave safe bowl and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Toss to coat. Microwave on high for 5 minutes.  Stir in maple syrup.  Serve warm.

4 servings.

For these pancakes, I used Granny Smith apples to make the topping.  They’re sweet and just a little bit tart.  Their flavor really comes out when you mix them with sugar and maple syrup.  For the finishing touch, I added a little dab of whipped cream to the top of the stack.  It was better than apple pie.

Just look at how homemade apple topping turns a bowl of boring oatmeal into a breakfast delight.  I like to sprinkle a Tablespoon or two of granola over the baked apples so you get a little crunch.  Of course, a dab of whipped cream works here too.

Any topping that’s good on pancakes will usually be equally awesome on a waffle or French toast.  For the waffle shown here, I drizzled just a little extra maple syrup so each dimple of the waffle had plenty of flavor.

This topping also makes a great filling for crepes.  It’s terrific on toast in place of jam.  It’s even good just on its own… with maybe a dab of whipped cream.  Is it clear yet that I like whipped cream?

This recipe is so easy and it really does turn plain breakfast fare into something special.  I hope you’ll give it a try.