Oven-Baked Blueberry Pancakes Recipe

Pancakes are always popular at breakfast time, for everyone but the cook. After all, It can be pretty labor-intensive to stand in front of a hot stove cooking them one at a time. While developer Jessica Morone says of this recipe, "You could take this batter and make pancakes on the stove, but I always find that time-consuming and they never come out as pretty and uniform as I would like." If you bake the batter instead, she says you'll wind up with "a thick, fluffy, and delicious blueberry pancake that cooks almost effortlessly in the oven."

Although this is a recipe for blueberry pancakes, you can use it as a template to make any kind of oven pancakes you like. As Morone says, "It is very versatile," so it could work with sliced bananas, strawberries, nuts, chocolate chips, or even something unexpected pancake ingredients like bacon. It can also stand very well on its own as a plain pancake.

You just need pretty standard pancake ingredients for the pancake itself: flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter, milk, and an egg. To flavor it, you'll be stirring in some blueberries, plus a little bit of lemon juice and zest to complement the blueberries.

Morone favors whole milk for the batter, saying it "just adds a more rich flavor to baked goods," but allows that lower-fat milk or even plant milk can be used if that's what you have on hand.

While this pancake is baked in an oven, you'll still be using a frying pan or skillet, but it must be oven-proof — Morone likes a cast-iron skillet and uses a 10-inch one. If you don't have the right size skillet or one that is oven-proof, a 10-inch round baking pan could work, too.

Take your pan and put it in the oven, then turn the oven to 375 F. The pan will heat up as the oven does, which will help your pancake bake faster.

Mix up your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt), then melt 3 tablespoons of the butter. Let it cool down just a bit before combining it with the milk, egg, and lemon juice. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ones and stir until the batter is fairly smooth — a few small lumps are okay, since these are typical for pancake batter. Finish off the batter by stirring in the blueberries and lemon zest.

If the oven has reached the proper temperature, take the pan out and drop in that last piece of butter. Swirl it around to coat the bottom of the pan, then pour in the batter. Put the pan back in the oven and bake it for 20 to 25 minutes until it appears golden brown. If you want to make sure it's not still raw inside, Morone suggests that you could stick a toothpick into the center after 20 minutes, but she says of the pancake, "Because this is baked rather than cooked on the stove, it bakes very evenly" so she feels that the inside should be done by the time the outside appears cooked.

Cut the pancake into pieces to make individual portions. You can sprinkle it with powdered sugar if you wish, or else go with a more standard pancake combo of butter and syrup. Jam or honey would be good, too, or you could also dress the pancakes up with whipped cream and fresh berries.