Orange Cardamom Pancakes #BrunchWeek

#BrunchWeek is here and in full effect! Have you been following along? Have you entered the Brunch Week contest to win 1 of 8 prize packs? I certainly hope so, because I have a treat for you today: Orange Cardamom Pancakes.

I mentioned before that I'm a Brunch On Saturday type of woman, but when you make brunch at home on Sunday, it's not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants meal. It requires planning. It requires finesse. It requires mimosas, bloody marys, bloody marias or bloody caesars and eggs. Today, I've got two of those things. (For the record, it's planning and eggs lol)

I LOVE these pancakes. I mean, for real love them. They're fluffy, light, intoxicatingly flavorful and there's a secret, not-so-secret ingredient: yeast.


Red Star Yeast is one of Brunch Week's sponsors and I didn't want to showcase this new-to-me product with a bread or a roll. I'd never made yeasted pancakes before and I thought I'd try it to see what happens. What happens are SUPER fluffy pancakes like the ones in stock photos and television commercials. I am so impressed with Red Star. I made some focaccia forward a cooking class, using an old recipe of mine and it turned out better than any other time I've made it. I've used other brands of yeast because that's what I grew up using. No more. Red Star is it.

Now let's talk about how these bad boys taste: Orange and cardamom? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I mean, Mmm...

I used Brunch Week sponsor Nielsen-Massey's orange extract and cinnamon's cute cousin, cardamom. So exotic, so floral, so great in these pancakes. I never thought to use any extract other than vanilla or almond in baked goods before this week. A little granulated sprinkle from my old friends from Dixie Crystals set me on the right track. To add a little bit more pizzazz, I also added a little bit of grated carrot to give the pancakes that funfetti effect. I used my cool new zester and nesting measuring spoons from Kitchen I.Q.  The zester is super duper cool: there's a guard, a reservoir to hold the zest or shavings of whatever you're using and a teeny tiny squeegee to help remove it. It's a great little gadget. You should get one! And you just might if you enter the #BrunchWeek giveaway contest!


In the meantime, while you wait for your yeasted pancakes to rise, you can scroll down a bit and check out what the rest of my talented blogger friends are making for brunch and make plans accordingly!


Thank you to #BrunchWeek Sponsors: Red Star Yeast, Dixie Crystals, Cabot Cheese, Vidalia Onion Committee, Sage Fruits, Nielsen-Massey, KitchenIQ, and Le Creuset for providing the prizes free of charge. These companies also provided the bloggers with samples and product to use for #BrunchWeek. All opinions are my own.