Delicious Fluffy Lemon Blueberry Cardamom Pancakes

What is better than a good stack of blueberry pancakes on a Saturday morning? Lemon-blueberry pancakes! The tartness of the lemons goes perfect with the sweetness of the blueberries. Several months ago, I woke up early on a Saturday morning on a quest to come up with the perfect blueberry lemon pancake recipe. My four year old son also woke up early and of course, he asked me “where are the pancakes, daddy?”.

So I decided to take him on a field trip to the grocery store. I needed something to make these pancakes unique and a little exotic. Cinnamon? No, it doesn’t really go well with blueberries and lemons! Aha! Lavender! Lavender would pair well with both the blueberries and lemons. I asked a clerk at our local grocery store where the lavender was, he looked at me like I had three heads. He replied, “I don’t think we have that kind of thing here”. I thought about going to another grocery store, maybe Whole Foods? But when 4 years olds get hungry, they get cranky. Cranky 4 year olds are no fun on a Saturday morning before I have had my pancakes, let alone my coffee.

We searched the spice aisle, then it came to me. Cardamom! Cardamom is exotic enough to give these pancakes that special something without being too overpowering. So we grabbed some ground Cardamom, frozen blueberries, and lemons and headed home. The pancakes turned out magnificent! Since this first session, I experimented with the amount of Cardamom to add to the batter. 1/2 tablespoon per 1 cup of flour wasn’t enough and didn’t taste that much different from standard lemon-blueberry pancakes. 2 tablespoons per 1 cup of flour was a little too much and a little overpowering. 1 tablespoon per 1 cup of flour seems to be the sweet spot.

My son likes to help make these pancakes and loves to be the one to squeeze the lemon juice out of the lemons. The first couple of times we made these, we just squeezed the lemons by hand but found a couple of lemon seeds in the pancakes while we were eating them. This is kind of like finding a bone in your fish as you eat it, not a great experience. Since then, I have gotten a citrus squeezer which catches all the seeds. It is also easier for him to use.

This recipe is now one of my wife’s favorites! I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we have!

Helpful Tips

  1. Don’t skip out on sifting the dry ingredients. Sifting adds air to the batter which helps make the pancakes fluffy. Also sifting in your baking powder and baking soda makes sure no clumps of baking soda are hiding in the batter. Nothing is worse than biting into an otherwise tasty pancake and discovering a little clump of baking soda in your mouth.
  2. Add the lemon juice to the buttermilk to until you get the desired amount of total liquid. If you use the amount of milk you would normally use for a “plain” pancake recipe, when you add the lemon juice, you will shift the ratio of flour to liquid to too much liquid and the pancake batter will be too thin
  3. Add the melted butter to the milk/lemon juice mixture before adding the egg yolk. This warms the milk and cools the butter. If you add the melted butter and yolk first, the hot butter will start to cook the egg. Warm milk make better pancakes, but I ain’t got no time for leaving milk out to warm it before starting. I’ll forget about it and it will spoil, and my wife will get on to me about it. The hot melted butter instantly warms the milk
  4. Don’t whip the eggs until right before you are gonna add them in. They will get stiff and won’t stir into the batter quite as nicely. Also, don’t whip to hard peaks. Whip only until bubbly and soft peaks start to form.
Stack of Blueberry Lemon Cardamom Panckaes with extra blueberries and banana slices
Yield: 15-18 medium sized pancakes

Lemon Blueberry Cardamom Pancakes

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes

Simple the best light and fluffy Lemon Blueberry Cardamom Pancakes. These are my wife's favorite pancakes!

Ingredients

  • 2 cup all purpose white flour
  • 2 tablespoons of baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • 1 cup of buttermilk
  • 4 tablespoons of melted butter
  • 2 tablespoons of cardamom powder
  • 2 large eggs
  • 4 tablespoons of brown sugar
  • 4 large lemons

Instructions

  1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cardamom in a large mixing bowl
  1. Zest the lemons and set aside for the lemon zest
  2. Pour the buttermilk into a medium sized measuring cup
  3. Squeeze the lemon juice from the lemons into the buttermilk until you have two cups total of milk and lemon juice
  4. Melt the butter and add it to the milk and lemon mixture
  5. Crack the eggs and separate the whites into a small bowl
  6. Place the yolks in large mixing bowl, add the brown sugar and stir together
  7. Add the milk, butter, lemon juice mixture to the brown sugar and egg yolk and stir together with a wisk or a fork
  8. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl and add the lemon zest into the batter and use a spatula to gently fold the contents together, do NOT over mix!
  9. Use a power mixer to whip the egg whites until firm peaks are formed
  10. Add the egg whites into the batter and gently fold them in
  11. Let the batter sit for 10-15 minutes while you turn on the burner to medium-low heat and place your pan on the burner
  12. Measure out your blueberries and keep them in a small cup next to the pancake batter
  13. Test the pan by dropping a few drops of water on the pan - the water should boil away over a few seconds
  14. Use an ice cream scoop or 1/3 measuring cup to scoop batter and place on the pan
  15. Drop the blueberries on the pancake
  16. Wait until the pancake bubbles and edges begin to curl, then gently flip with a spatula
  17. Repeat steps 15 thru 17 until all the pancakes are cooked
  18. Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit of your choice

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Nutrition Information:

Yield:

12 pancakes

Serving Size:

1

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 156Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 42mgSodium: 468mgCarbohydrates: 24gFiber: 2gSugar: 5gProtein: 4g

FAQs

  • Should I use frozen blueberries or fresh blueberries? I prefer frozen blueberries. Fresh blueberries will retain much more heat than the rest of the pancake, so when you bite into them, they will be so hot they can burn your mouth. If I have fresh blueberries on hand, I do like to sprinkle them over the top of the pancakes
  • Should I mix in the blueberries into the batter or drop them on each pancake just after placing the pancake batter on the pan? I have always liked to mix in the blueberries into the batter because the streaks of blueberry juice that leak into the batter add a great flavor to the pancakes. However, you have to make sure you don’t over mix! I have converted to the drop them on the batter method, because my oldest son doesn’t like blueberries. This way I will make a “Lemon Cardamom” pancake batch first for him, then drop on the blueberries for the rest of the pancakes.
  • What if I don’t have buttermilk? No worries! Just mix in the lemon juice with plain milk or the non-dairy milk of your choice and let it sit for a bit before adding the melted butter and than the egg whites
  • What can be substituted for the sugar? Coconut sugar works well and cooks similar to brown sugar. Just keep in mind, the pancakes will be a little less sweet.
  • How do I make this recipe dairy-free? Substitute the buttermilk with your favorite nut milk and add the lemons into the milk to “cirdle” the milk. Replace the melted butter with melted coconut oil. I have tested the recipe with this substitution and it still tastes great!

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    • jeremy@thepancakedoc.com

      Thank you for the kind words. I am glad you found the site and enjoyed it. I have been slow to add content due the craziness of work and life at home with two small kids. I am starting to get in a rhythm now and hope to add at least one post per week. Stay tuned!

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