Lemon Cornmeal Pancakes

I love a big Sunday morning breakfast. But if I sleep in, I need to eat fast before hunger induced crankiness descends - no time for fussing around. I decided I'd make waffles for Sunday breakfast, I'd inherited my Nana's waffle iron, it was time to finally give it a go. I found an egg-free recipe from the wonderful Vegan with a Vengeance book, and made sure the night before that I had all of the ingredients.

However it is a bit rough cooking something new with fewer than half the brain cells functioning. I'd decided to go dairy rather than soy; cow milk and yogurt substitute well enough for soy milk and yogurt. But then I decided instead of oil to use up some of the butter that melted on Friday 'cause we forgot to put it in the fridge and was almost a puddle when I got home from work. I remelted the butter and st ired it in; sadly it set in lots of little lumps as it came in contact with the icy cold milk and yogurt. This necessitated a bit of careful heating of the milk in order that the butter remelt.

I haven't used a waffle iron since I was a kid, but I seem to recall heating it for a while, pouring some mix in, and in a moment, waffle magic. Well sadly that didn't happen. I think the non-stick surface was no-longer non-stick. Cooked, the waffles would split in half as I opened the waffle iron to remove them. After messing up three, things were getting bad; I'd burnt myself, I was insanely hungry, the small one was under my feet, hungry and very keen t0 see what mum was doing and have a go. So I heated up the fry pan, diluted the waffle mix with a bit more milk and made pancakes and they were fantastic. Two things to remember next time: the pancakes need to sit for a minute; they magically change from being doughy and a bit yuk to crisp, and no need to keep tabs on the maple syrup bottle - the small girl doesn't like it

Dry ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cornmeal (I used yellow maize flour from the local organic wholefoods shop)

Wet ingredients
1/4 cup corn oil (veg or canola oil will do, don't use butter unless you warm the milk)
2 1/2 cups dairy or soy milk (may need to add a little more if this is still too thick)
1/4 cup dairy or soy yogurt
zest and juice from 2 lemons
1/4 cup sugar

Sift together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. In a medium bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients (including sugar and lemon juice/zest) until well combined. Create a well in the center of the flour mixture and slowly blend in the wet ingredients until combined.

Heat a non-stick fry pan, and make pancakes as desired.

Serve with blueberry sauce or pure maple syrup.