Chai Almond Panocakelet

One thing I've recently learned, is that cooking doesn't really have rules.

So it kind of does. More like...laws of nature. You can't put sugar on pepperoni and expect it to taste like crackers. That would be ridiculous.

And there are ways which people have learned to cook certain things so that they turn out tasting really great. But those aren't really rules either. You don't have to follow the recipe, do you?

I'm not saying you shouldn't follow the recipe. I'm just saying...there's no rules that say you have to, if you're just cooking to cook.

This is why I sometimes read cookbooks more like regular books. I mean I read them. I don't sit down and pop one open and make it. If I want to make something, I like to read a couple of recipes for it. Do my research. Think about it. Then I make it, or I wait.

I like learning about the ingredients. I like knowing what egg does when you combine it with milk. Or what vinegar does when you combine it with baking soda (other than make a marvelous volcano!).

That's why I like baking. Because it's basically chemistry, but I'm not following any formulas or doing any difficult math. And I get to eat the finished product!

It's like experimenting. In my kitchen. With food. What could be more fun?

It's so great.

So this is something that I wanted to make this morning. Something between an omelet and a pancake. So kind of like a crepe. But bigger. It probably has a name, and correlates with some recipe somewhere. But I'm going to call it a panocakelet. Because I can. Say it aloud with me, "PANOCAKELET!"

Doesn't it sound yummy? I'll tell you how I made it.

Chai Almond Panocakelet

Ingredients (one serving)
for panocakelet batter:
1 egg
1 tsp flour
1/8 cup almond milk

pinch baking soda
pinch salt
1 tsp chai powder (I used green tea chai powder)

add-in: 1/8 cup of sliced almonds (I used raw, unsalted)

for "chai sauce":
Mix 1 tsp chai powder with small drops of almond milk until desired consistency is reached.
(I added nut butter as a thickener/to get the texture I wanted.)
You can make it into more of a frosting by adding powdered sugar, butter, and/or cream cheese.

Gather the ingredients, mix all batter ingredients.

Pour the panocakelet batter in a greased pan which has been warmed to medium-high heat. Flip when the bottom appears to be done (lift it up to check).

Then fill it with sliced almonds and chai...sauce!

It's a delicious eggy pancake. Panocakelet. Mmm. Enjoy!