Bisquick Blueberry Pancakes

By Addie

Source: Cover recipe - Woman’s Day, January 2010

This issue of Women’s Day came out in January 2010. For the life of me, I can’t understand why a magazine would put mouthwatering blueberry pancakes on a January cover. Where are blueberries fresh in the middle of January? The print on the cover does not have anything at all to do with blueberry pancakes, so I’m not at all sure why this recipe was selected to be featured. Interesting choice. In any case, I saved the magazine until summer… when blueberries are plentiful, ripe and cheap (and not imported).

There must be a good reason why this recipe was selected for the cover, but I can’t – for the life of me- figure out what it is. Isn’t a cover supposed to be a representation of what you might be expecting from a magazine that month? The blueberry pancakes came out of nowhere. There isn’t a reference to them in the entire magazine… just a recipe tucked onto the last page without any connection at all to any of the food-related articles. Strange. See notes below for how these pancakes turned out…

Ingredients

• 1 cup pancake & baking mix (such as Bisquick)
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. lemon zest
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
• 2 tsp. butter
• Blueberry or maple syrup, for serving

Preparation

Step 1

1. Stir baking mix, milk, egg, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and juice in a bowl until blended. Stir in berries.

2. Melt 1 tsp. butter in a large nonstick skillet. For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup batter into pan.

3. Cook until bottoms are golden; turn over and cook until bottoms are golden. Repeat with remaining butter and batter.

Yield: 10 (4-inch pancakes)

Did this recipe deserve the cover spotlight? Uh, no. What this recipe has to do with the theme of the magazine for the month of January… is not clear. And they were good pancakes but they certainly weren’t the “best-ever.”

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Comments:

Text on the cover of the magazine says that these are the “best-ever blueberry pancakes.” The recipe starts with a boxed mix, so I was immediately skeptical of that claim.

There isn’t really a lot different in this recipe than in a normal boxed mix recipe, except the addition of lemon zest & juice, and of course the blueberries.

The added lemon was a nice idea. You definitely taste it and it was good with the blueberries.

The recipe calls for adding the blueberries to the mix. First of all, it only calls for 1/2 cup of blueberries. This isn’t nearly enough. Second, it’s much better just to spoon the batter onto the pan and then scatter the blueberries on top of the batter. If they’re mixed into the batter, you have to worry about trying to get enough in each pancake.

If you’re looking to jazz up a boxed mix that you have in your pantry, this is a good option. If you want the best-ever pancakes though, I go with this recipe that I reviewed a couple of months ago (and add blueberries if you’d like).