Strawberry Cream Cheese Pancake Stack

Valentine’s Day is one day away people! If you have someone special, I hope you already made plans. I’ll be spending the day eating chocolate, drinking wine and thinking about how much I miss the beach. My one true love. Well I’m actually at the beach in Texas but it is not the same as California beaches. Mainly because 60 degree weather is a tease. Warm enough to wear a dress but not warm enough to lay out. Now I don’t love frying my skin (anymore), but I love the warmth on my skin. I love laying out and reading a good book outside instead of indoors. Oh well only a couple more months until summer!

If you really want to impress your significant other, there is no better way than breakfast in bed. A nice surprise would be to make this the day after Valentine’s to show you can make a grand gesture on the other 364 days in the year. Well and it is a Saturday so you have more time in the kitchen. I love making breakfast, but normally reserve my big breakfasts for the weekend. I have more time to sit down and truly enjoy the meal I made for myself. This pancake stack is inspired by my old favorite IHOP breakfast treat, strawberry stuffed french toast. I didn’t want to make bread and then stuff it, so I thought why not layer pancakes. It turned out better than I could have imagined!

Paleo Strawberry Cream Cheese Pancake Stack

Ingredients

pancakes

1 cup almond flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
2 large eggs
4 tbls strawberry mash, recipe below
1 Tbls honey
2 tsp warm water
coconut oil for frying

strawberry mash

1 cup strawberries, quartered
1 tbls water
1/2 tbls honey

cream cheese filling

1/3 cup cashew butter
3 tbls full-fat canned coconut milk
2 tbls palm shortening
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tbls honey
pinch of sea salt

Directions

For the strawberry mash:

In a small sauce pot over medium heat, cook the strawberries and water.
Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes.
Using a wooden spoon, mash strawberries and continue cooking for 5 more minutes.
Mash again until all strawberries are broken down. Let mixture cool.

For the cream cheese:

Mix all ingredients together with your immersion blender or a regular blender until smooth. I used this immersion blender, which also has a whisk attachment I use later.

For the pancakes:

In a medium bowl, mix together the almond flour, baking soda & salt.
In 2 different bowls, separate the eggs whites from the yolks. Set the egg whites aside.
Blend together the egg yolks, cooled strawberry mash, honey and water.
Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix well.
Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they have medium soft peaks.
Gently fold into the pancake mixture until well combined.
Pre-heat your griddle over medium heat. You want to make sure the pan is not too hot, or it will burn the pancakes.
Add approximately 3 tablespoons of batter to the pan and smooth into a circle with a spatula. The batter is a little stiff and won’t spread like typical batter.
Cook pancakes until bubbles start to form and pop on the edges working their way into the middle.
Using a flexible spatula, flip pancakes and cook for another 2 minutes.

To serve:

Start with a pancake on the bottom, dollop of remaining strawberry mash, pancake, large dollop of cream cheese, pancake, strawberry mash, pancake, cream cheese. Ok you get the idea.
Drizzle any remaining cream cheese on top. Present to significant other!
Makes 8 pancakes.