London Fogs and Sweet Potato Pancakes

I've been meaning to get together with my friend Rachel for months now, so it was awesome that she called me up last week to announce that she was hungry for sweet potato pancakes.

Sweet potatoes are just one of those delicious and fantastically good-for-you foods, and sweet potato pancakes are easy to make gluten-free by swapping in GF flour.  While over the last few years I've become a dedicated morning coffee drinker, I've always enjoyed tea-- especially black teas.


At the Rookery Café in Juneau, I discovered this wonder tea latte-- the London Fog.  It's Earl Grey tea with steamed milk and a splash of vanilla simple syrup.  I'm a big fan of Earl Grey (I especially enjoy the double bergamot Earl Grey), so I decided to try making it at home.  Initially I bought a bottle of vanilla syrup like they have at the coffee shops, but then I decided to try to make the vanilla simple syrup from scratch.  Once you make a batch of vanilla simple syrup, store it in the refrigerator.  (I also tried to make pumpkin spice simple syrup, but that turned into a big sticky mess, so some drinks such as pumpkin spice lattes just are easier to get at a coffee shop)

I don't have a espresso machine to make the steamed milk, but awhile back when I was in the Lower 48, I picked up this hand-dandy milk frother for $1.99 at IKEA.  It's one of my favorite kitchen gadgets. 

London Fog

Ingredients
Earl Grey tea
1 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1.5 tbsp vanilla extract

Directions

Measure out 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar.

Add water and sugar to a pan.

Simmer on a medium heat until all the sugar dissolves and the liquid is clear.

Funnel the syrup into a glass bottle.

Add the vanilla extract.

Swirl the bottle to disperse the vanilla through the syrup.

Steep an Earl Grey tea bag in about 1 cup of just-slightly-less-than-boiling water for ~3 minutes. If you steep black tea too long, it becomes bitter.

Heat and froth the milk.  I usually just heat the milk in the microwave and then use my frother.  If you don't have an espresso machine or a frother, you can also froth the milk using a French press to froth milk by adding hot milk to the French press and plunging it a number of times to create air bubbles.

Add the steeped tea to the frothed milk.

Add ~1 teaspoon of the vanilla syrup and enjoy!

Sweet potato pancakes

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 cooked sweet potato
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups gluten-free flour

Directions

Mix the melted butter with the milk and eggs.

Scrape the inside of the sweet potato into the bowl.  If you want smooth pancakes, then you can use an electric mixer, but I usually leave the sweet potato somewhat chunky.

Add the nutmeg and salt.  I put Rachel to work grating the nutmeg.

Add the baking powder.

Mix in the flour.  Once again, I made Rachel work for her breakfast.

Rachel did an excellent job stirring the batter...

Cook the pancakes on a slightly oiled griddle over medium heat.

Usually you can tell when to flip pancakes by watching for bubbles to stop forming on the top of the pancakes, but these are a little more difficult to tell when they're ready to flip, so I just check to see when they're golden on the bottom and beginning to look pretty solid.

Sweet potato pancakes are especially good when topped with a bit of plain yogurt, pecans, and maple syrup.