Russian-style Pancakes with Banana and Rye

Unfortunately, in the cooking process, I used the last
of the sour cream.  These are nice alongside powdered
sugar in a pinch.

Russians have a wide variety of pancake-like breakfasts: syrniki, which are dense and made of farmer's cheese, blini, which are very thin, and alladushki, which are like American pancakes, but denser.
This is a recipe for alladishki.  The alladushki are rather sweet on their own, and are best when served with sour cream, orange marmalade, or anything else with a sour note present.

While cooking, I used sour cream, although you can easily substitute strained yoghurt for it.




Ingredients:

♕210g / 1.5 cup white flour
♕60g / 0.3 cup rye flour
♕50g / 0.25 cup sugar
♕8g / 2 tsp baking soda
♕dash salt
♕1g / 0.5 tsp cinnamon
♕2g / 1 tsp orange zest (dry)
♕130g / 0.5 cup sour cream
♕1 egg
♕45g / 2 Tbsp honey
♕200g / 1 cup milk
♕Oil or butter, for cooking
♕2 or 4 bananas
note: if you want the bananas to be on both sides of the alladushki, use 4.

Procedure:

♕Slice bananas into 1cm / 0.5 inch rounds.
♕Combine dry ingredients, mix well.
♕In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients, except for the banana and mix well.
♕Heat a pan to medium-low temperature, and warm up oil.
♕Once the pan is hot, mix all of your wet and dry ingredients together.
♕Pour a large spoonful of batter onto the pan.
note: if you used 4 bananas, before pouring the batter, place 3-4 rounds onto the pan and put the batter on top of those.
♕Place 3-4 rounds of banana on the wet batter facing towards you.
♕Let sit until edges are just slightly browned, around three minutes, making sure not to burn the alladushki.
♕Flip alladushki over with a spatula and cook their other side for a bit shorter time, a little less than two minutes.
♕Cook all of the batter as such.
♕Serve hot or cold-- these keep well in the fridge,
 in an airtight container.

Chocolatey Banana Bread

Banana bread is a very convenient way to use up blackened bananas.  This recipe for banana bread contains a high amount of whole grains, with chocolatey undertones and chopped nuts for complexity.  It is a good bread for breakfast, with a dough that is not too moist or too dense, thanks to the combined efforts of the baking soda and sour cream.

Ingredients:

♕1 cup / 120g whole wheat flour
♕.5 cup / 50g rye flour
♕.5 cup / 65g white flour
♕2 t / 9g baking soda
♕2 T / 11g cacao powder
♕3 T / 25g dark chocolate, chopped and/or shaved
♕1 cup / 200g turbinado sugar
♕.75 cup / 180mL milk
♕1 tsp / 5mL vanilla extract
♕.25 cup / 55g coconut oil
♕3 very ripe bananas
♕2 eggs
♕4T / 58g sour cream
♕10 hazelnuts

Procedure:

♕Preheat oven to 375˚F /
♕Sift together flours, cacao powder, shaved chocolate, and baking soda.  Add sugar and stir.
♕Mash bananas into a paste in a separate bowl.
♕Melt coconut oil and stir into bananas.
♕To banana mixture, incorporate milk, vanilla extract, eggs, and sour cream.  Stir until
homogeneous.
♕Chop hazelnuts roughly.
note: a mortar and pestle is ideal for this.  Shoot for chunks the size of pebbles.
♕Once the oven is ready, quickly divide mixture into two standard (8' by 3' / 21cm by 8cm) pans.
♕Top with hazelnuts, and bake for 45 minutes.

Orange Rye cookies

I'm a big fan of rye flour, as well as cookies.  These cookies are very wintery in appearance, which is a pity, since Winter is almost over for everyone except for our friends in the southern hemisphere.  Perhaps I will make them once more as Easter rolls around, but include rabbits as the garnish.
These cookies have a very strong orange taste, and the honey merges well with the rye flour.  The dough's flavor would be much more accurately described as "light", not at all reminiscent of rye bread.

I intended to make a very small batch with this recipe, but the ingredients used in their recorded proportions yield a surprisingly high amount of cookies, good for one small Christmas party.


This recipe makes 26 cookies 2 cm in diameter.

Ingredients:
For the cookie
♕1/3 cup/65g rye flour
♕2/3 cup/100g white flour
♕4 T+1t/90g honey
♕5 1/2 T/60g butter, cut into cubes
♕zest of 1/2 orange

For the filling:
♕30g dark or white chocolate
♕1 sprig rosemary
♕a pinch of orange zest

Procedure:
♕Preheat oven to 350˚F/175˚C
♕Combine dry ingredients including zest, mix in honey, and stir in butter
♕Stir vigorously (or just use clean hands) to mix everything into one mass
♕Once the mass is ready, begin pinching off pieces the size of your lower thumb joint.  You should get 26.
♕Onto a baking sheet covered in parchment paper, place rolled circles of dough.
♕Press an indent into each cookie with your finger note: if you don't want to put any filling in your cookie, roll your dough out and cut shapes, instead.  The cookies are good with and without a filled center.
♕Bake for 16-20 minutes
♕Remove from oven and cover with a cotton cloth while it cools
♕Melt the chocolate, adding a few crushed up leaves of rosemary halfway through the melting process
♕Using a very small spoon drip the chocolate into each cookie's indent
♕While the chocolate is still pliable, garnish the cookies with rosemary leaves and orange zest


♕Serve cold