Recipes

Our guests often request the recipe for the spectacular and delicious oven pancake we usually serve on their first morning. Here it is – simply wonderful!

Finnish Oven Pancake

As found in Breakfast in Bed by Carol Frieberg

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 5 eggs
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt (optional)
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup small-curd cottage cheese
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Fresh berries and confectioners’ sugar (optional)
• Real maple syrup

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut butter into small pieces and place in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet or a 9- by 13-inch glass baking dish. Heat in oven until butter is melted. Combine eggs, sugar, and salt, if desired, in blender or electric mixer; mix at high speed for 1 minute. Continue to mix while slowly adding milk, then flour, then cottage cheese, then baking powder. Pour blended mixture into hot skillet or baking dish. Bake for 35 minutes, until pancake is puffed and beginning to brown. Remove from oven. Let sit 5 to 8 minutes before cutting. (Centre will fall.) Serve with berries and confectioners’ sugar or with butter and warm maple syrup.

Turkish Breakfast

This relatively recent addition to Rick’s repertoire is provides an elegant, savoury start to the day.

Coat ramekins with olive oil, in which you crumble feta cheese. Slice healthy pieces of focaccia bread (Rick makes it topped with rosemary and coarse sea salt) and toast them under the broiler while poaching eggs, one for each guest. After the bread is toasted, slide the feta-filled ramekins under the broiler, just until slightly melted. Then top the cheese with a poached egg and sprinkle with aleppo or urfu pepper. Serve with the toasted bread and garnish with kalamata olives.

This is quite a savoury meal, so we finish it with a few scoops of homemade lemon sorbet an unusual finish to a gourmet breakfast that always results in compliments to the chef!

Oatmeal & Cheese Dog Biscuits/Training Treats

Even the most finicky of dog guests like these special biscuits. Silas gets them as training treats, and highly recommends them.

• 1 cup rolled oats (not instant)
• 1/3 cup margarine
• 1 cup boiling water
• 3/4 cup cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons instant bouillon
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 to 3 cups whole wheat flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.

In large bowl, combine oats, margarine and boiling water; let stand 10 minutes. Stir in cornmeal, sugar, bouillon, milk, cheese and egg; mix well. Add flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition to form a stiff dough.

On a floured surface, knead in flour until dough is smooth and no longer sticky. Roll or pat out to ½-inch thickness. For biscuits, cut with cookie cutter (dogs prefer bone shapes!). Place 1 inch apart on cookie sheets and bake, 325 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Turn off oven and allow biscuits to cool overnight or until oven is cool.

Note: for training treats, roll out dough. Using a flat edge (such as a ruler), score a grid of little squares, without cutting through the dough. Bake and cool as above, then break the squares apart.

Freeze biscuits or treats, thawing as needed.