Dandelion Pancakes

My mother's day request was time to make dandelion pancakes. (It's a little tedious to pluck all those petals...) Last year I made them for lunch all through May, but last year I was tending a greenhouse for 37 CSA members, not 64. And I was doing it with a curious 18 month old, which is a bit challenging, instead of a demanding 2 and a half year old, which is very much more challenging.

So, I didn't get as many chances to make my beloved pancakes this year, or actually any (now you know what your CSA farmer has sacrificed in order to be your farmer) and today I noticed that, thanks to the early spring, if I waited until Sunday to make the pancakes I would be too late. My cheery yellow lawn is starting to go to seed.

So I made them today.

And I thought I would share the recipe here, to appease those of you who are awaiting your first shares of garden fresh veggies and also have some dandelions in the lawn yet this year, and a bit of spare time on your dandelion stained hands.

Whole Wheat Dandelion Pancakes

• 6-8 cups freshly picked dandelion blossoms

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/3 cups milk
• 4 eggs
• Additional butter for cooking

Pluck the yellow and white petals from the green portion of the dandelion flowers. It really helps to have some assistance with this step. Is is impossible to remove every last trace of green. Don't try to. It will drive you crazy.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.

Melt the quarter cup butter over low heat. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the cold milk (you want to make the butter re-solidify a bit in the milk, it makes delicious buttery bits in the pancakes) and the eggs. Mix until smooth.

Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula. Stir until the batter is smooth. Fold in the dandelion petals. It will look like soggy dandelion mush. That's what you are going for at this point.

This is what the pancakes look like at this stage.
Later they will hover idyllically in the field,
as seen in the above photograph.

Heat butter for cooking the pancakes in a large skillet over medium/low heat. When the butter is melted pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan and spread it so it is about a 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick (the batter won't really spread on its own like dandelion free pancake batter). Do this until the skillet is full. Cook until the pancakes are golden brown, flip, then cook until the other side is golden as well.

Repeat until you have used up all of the batter.