Alex Guarnaschelli's Tip For Mess-Free Fruit Pancakes

When it comes to fruity flapjacks, I like how the fresh fruit warms up and becomes super juicy when it cooks inside each pancake on the griddle. Of course, the catch is that when the fruit bursts, it leaves a sticky mess for me to clean up. You can have the same problem with frozen fruit too, and, inevitably, it dyes the pancake batter once it begins to thaw. Leave it to extremely talented chef, author, and television host Alex Guarnaschelli to find a way to make mess-free fruit pancakes, and her solution is to use dried fruit instead of fresh or frozen.

Depending on how long the fruit sits in the pancake batter, dried fruit will plump up a bit and rehydrate on its own, especially if you're resting your pancake batter or making overnight yeasted buttermilk pancakes. Even if the dried fruit doesn't swell much, it lends a pleasant, chewy texture to soft, fluffy pancakes. If you want the fruit to plump up more, consider soaking the fruit in some warm water before you add it to your batter. 

Dried cranberries, cherries, blueberries, golden raisins, and goji berries are all fruits you can toss right into your recipes without having to chop them up. Larger chunks of dried fruit, such as apricots, figs, dates, apples, mangoes, peaches, and pineapple, should be cut into smaller pieces. Because most of the juice in dried fruit has evaporated, using it doesn't add any additional moisture to your batter, nor will it turn your pancake batter a different color.

To those who prefer their pancake fruit to be fresh, regardless of any mess it may cause, fruit-topped pancakes are great, and they look smashing. If the fruit must be in the batter, Alex Guarnaschelli's tip for making pancakes with fresh fruit won't save you from getting sticky fruit juices on your pan (this is pretty much impossible to avoid), but it will ensure that the juices don't bleed into the mix. 

Drop your pancake batter portions onto a griddle or skillet, preferably swapping cream for butter. At this point, dot the uncooked side with whatever fruit you're using so you can ensure that every pancake has an even distribution. When you flip the pancake, the side with the fruit will cook and likely burst, but you will have beautifully fruit-studded cakes.

Another option is to use freeze-dried fruit in your pancakes. Whereas dehydrated or dried fruit takes most of the moisture out of fruit with heat, freeze-drying eliminates all the water using extremely cold temperatures, leaving behind completely dried, crunchy pieces of fruit that actually taste sweet, delicious, and bright. Freeze-dried fruit will also plump when placed in pancake batter, or if you like the texture of it, you can simply place the freeze-dried fruit on top of your flapjack stack and douse everything in syrup.

Static Media owns and operates both The Takeout and Tasting Table.