The other day I spotted a jar of applesauce on the shop shelf. I can’t remember ever buying one, as it is so easy to make homemade applesauce. The first time I ate applesauce was in Germany (Apfelmus) where it’s traditionally served with roast pork or potato pancakes.

Applesauce is basically cooked and pureed apple.  It can be eaten warm or cold, served with savoury or sweet dishes. Homemade applesauce is a quick and easily digestible baby food. Use organic apples if possible, and omit sugar, lemon and spices if cooking for the little ones.

How to make Homemade apple sauce

You can use any apples to make homemade applesauce, but I prefer sweet ones: they cook faster and there’s no need to add sugar. Different varieties of apples can be mixed. You can make a small batch using two apples or a few kilos.

1. Peel and core the apples and cut into smaller chunks
2. Fill the pan to a depth of 1-2 cm with water (a bit more if making a large batch or like thinner sauce). Add cut apples
3. Cover with lid and bring to boil, then reduce the heat to low
4. Simmer the apples checking the water evaporation and softness occasionally. Depending on the apple variety and the amount, it will take about 10 – 20 minutes.
5. When the apples have cooked, remove the pan from the heat, let cool slightly and puree with a stick blender. For a chunky applesauce, use a potato masher.

Applesauce variations

Our family loves the homemade apple sauce in its simplest version with no sugar, no spices. Just pure, usually organic, applesauce. For an applesauce with a bit of a twist you can add:

• sugar if you prefer sweeter applesauce or using tart apple varieties
• ground cinnamon
• cinnamon stick (cook with apples and discard before pureeing)
• mixed spice / nutmeg / cloves
• lemon peel

Homemade applesauce will keep in the fridge a week or two. It’s suitable for freezing. For longer keeping, jar the applesauce in the same way as jam. Sterilise the jars in boiling water or in the oven, pour hot applesauce into hot jars and close the lid immediately. Store at room temperature.

Serving suggestions

Homemade applesauce tastes equally good warm or refreshingly cold from the fridge. Our favourite way of eating applesauce is spread on bread with tahini (ground sesame paste). We also love it on pancakes, with rice pudding or mixed with whipped cream. Applesauce goes well with pork or duck roast. And of course, it’s a nutritious and tasty apple puree for babies!

In my previous post on butter, Butter vs. Margarine, I wrote about why butter is a better option.  As I mentioned at the end, there is one thing about butter that isn’t so handy: it’s solid and hard to spread directly out of the fridge!

Types of butter

Butter is mostly made form cows’ milk.  In the past, cream was collected from the raw milk and then churned.  This was and still is the best butter, also known as raw cultured butter.

Cultured butter in the shops isn’t made the old-fashioned way.  It’s rather made with pasteurised cream and cultures are added to finished butter.

Unsalted (also called continental) butter is made as above without bacterial cultures added.  Salted butter as the name says, has salt added.

Organic butter is made with organic cream without any additives.

The best choice would be homemade organic raw cultured butter. However, unless you have your own cows or access to organic raw milk, it’s hard to get it in the shops.

How to make your own butter

As said above, to make butter from scratch you need raw milk (lots of it!).  Alternatively, you can buy cream and make your own.

Use cream with the highest fat percentage, 35% plus.  Pour it into a deep bowl and using a mixer beat until stiff.  Continue beating until some liquid starts to separate and cream turns yellow.   It will take some time.  When butter forms, press it together to expel liquid, put in a container and refrigerate.

In my opinion, this method isn’t worth the time and money.  When you calculate the cost of cream + time, butter is cheaper.  Though it is good to know the method in an emergency:  you need butter for a cake let’s say, the shop is closed or too far to drive but you have some cream in the fridge!

Soft Butter Spread Recipe

I’ve seen in the shops some butter spreads claiming to be spreadable.  They have oils added or water content increased.  So I decided to try it at home hoping that butter and oil won’t separate– it worked!  Butter naturally contains lecithin.  Lecithin is emulsifier – a substance that binds water and oil.   The first time I made soft butter spread was about 2 years ago.  Since then I’ve played with different oils and ingredients.

For the basic recipe you need a quantity of softened butter and oil of your choice (try to use good quality cold pressed extra virgin oil).  Also, I like to add water – it makes the spread a bit brittle, but there are fewer calories.

• 250g softened butter (or 2 sticks of butter for our US readers, that equals to 227g)
• ¼ cup oil
• ¼ cup water

Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix using a handheld stick blender, mixer, food processor or a whisker until all the ingredients are blended together.  The spread will be shiny but turn dull when refrigerated.   This recipe yields about 370g butter spread.

One of my experiments was to mix yoghurt instead of oil – to make a sort of soft cultured butter spread.  The result was interesting: instead of combining together, it started to separate a bit and to form little pockets of liquids, as when you make butter from cream!  Nevertheless, the taste was really good.

Note:

• You can omit water and add ½ cup oil only
• On the photo, it looks like 1 cup of liquids added, but the level increased when butter was added
• Water doesn’t only produce the best result, but it’s possible to make it as well
• Use this recipe as a guide only: increase or decrease the liquids to have firmer or softer spread
• While butter spread is still soft you can add herbs, garlic or other flavourings.

Nutritional Values of butter and butter spread

Here are nutritional values of each, butter and butter spread compared, per 100g using macadamia oil and above quantities:

You can see the change in decreased energy and saturated fat fields.

I predominantly make soft butter spread to have a spreadable butter in the morning, rather than out of worry about the saturated fat or calorie counting.  Long before we found about nutritional panels and kilojoules, people knew that  foods rich in calories shouldn’t be eaten by kilos.

My favourite soft butter spread is the one made with extra virgin olive oil and with yoghurt.  Our kids like milder tasting oils like macadamia.

Please share with us your thoughts about soft butter spread!

It’s December the 23rd!  Where did all 22 days disappear all so suddenly?  It feels like yesterday when I filled the advent calendar for the kids and took the picture below to post on the 1st!

Nevertheless it was a VERY busy period.  Not only there were numerous Christmas parties, concerts, picnics, functions etc at school, kinder and work, but also I’m working on my new business Make Bread – Melbourne.  A busy but exciting month!

The Christmas Tree dilemma

Our Christmas tree hasn’t been decorated yet.  Today’s weather forecast is 36 C (Christmas in Australia!) and we’d rather spend the afternoon on the beach.  We’ll do it tomorrow on Christmas Eve as it was done traditionally in many European countries in the past.  As kids we were allowed to decorate the tree once all the preparations and baking was done.  It was seen as the icing on the cake.

This year my husband and I had a discussion about a real Christmas tree and the decision was made to pull the plastic one again.  Cutting a beautiful tree that costs $60+ and throwing it two weeks later isn’t something that appeals to us.

A few years ago, we bought a lovely potted Christmas tree as this is in my opinion the greenest option.  Once the Christmas passed, we took the tree outside and on one 43 C (109 F) day, it was completely scorched!  The poor tree ended up in the compost bin.  My grandpa would go to the forest and cut a Christmas tree in order to thin out overcrowded pines, then chopped it after Christmas and us it to smoke the meat during the winter.  But that was in Europe.  In Australia, it makes more sense to decorate a eucalyptus tree

So rather than destroy another tree this way or that, we’ll fake it yet another year.

Christmas Baking

Christmas baking is something I really enjoy.  However, this year I didn’t do a lot of it, just a few batches of cookies.  November was unusually hot, I was focused on Bread Making Classes and December came all too suddenly.  After so many years Down Under, summer Christmas surprised me again.

The above cookies are made using the same recipe: for the crescents I used almonds, the round ones are made with ground walnuts.  They are my old favourite -  quick, easy and could be prepared long before Christmas.   Here is the recipe:

• 280 g flour
• 200 g cold butter cut into cubes (or cooking margarine for dairy free option)
• 80 g sugar
• 100 g ground nuts (my favourite are hazelnuts)
• 1 egg white (for egg free cookies, add 2 tablespoons of water and/or vanilla essence)
• icing sugar mixed with vanilla sugar

1. Whiz flour, butter, sugar and nuts in the food processor.
2. Add egg white or water and pulse till the dough just comes together.
3. Tip onto lightly floured surface and knead quickly .
4. Rest in the fridge for about 1 hour.
5. Shape into crescents or your preferred shape and bake on the tray 15 – 20 min on 180 C.
6. While still warm, dip  into icing sugar.
7. Keep cookies in the airtight container.

I couldn’t resist but make these Choc-cherry cupcakes: cherry season coincides with Christmas and they are a part of the Australian Christmas tradition.

Forget Cherry Ripe!

This year I skipped making chocolate truffles or anything chocolate coated or decorated: in Melbourne we can have anything between 18 and 40+ degrees Celsius on Christmas.

Christmas Presents and Wrapping

Each year we try to buy less presents.   We’ve agreed with friends not to buy presents for each others kids.  For our children it will be something small (I can’t tell what as our son usually reads the posts).  Maybe I could post pics of our presents next year .  At my husband’s work Kris Kringle was scraped in favour to giving a donation to a charity.

I like to give homemade presents that are consumables like cookies, soaps, preserves etc. This year being so busy I’ve skipped this tradition and bought a few little presents for teachers.   For wrapping I used recycled copy paper and warping paper.  Instead of ribbons I used raffia and paper twine.

Handmade Christmas Cards and Tags

Making handmade Christmas cards and tags takes time, but  I really enjoy making them and feel they are so special. I tend to recycle cardboard, old Christmas cards and pressed plants to make them.

Here are my simple Christmas gift tags, made from pressed fern and recycled old cards:

This handmade Christmas card has been made using homemade glue and all natural parts. The bonus: when Christmas is over, toss it into the compost bin, its fully compostable!

Hope you’ve enjoyed a snapshot of Sustainable Eco’s Christmas!

To all our readers that celebrate Christmas now or in January we wish you a happy and safe festive season!  If you aren’t celebrating Christmas, we wish you a happy and prosperous New Year 2010!

We are taking our summer break and will be back refreshed in January.

This inspirational video was created by Make Bread.

I’m very excited to see the first strawberry flowers in our container garden:  the berry season in upon us!  We will have just enough of our strawberries to taste, but usually go to the berry farms to pick larger quantities.  The best way to enjoy berries is to eat them fresh on their own or in fruit salads.  Also, we make a lot of berry ice cream, freeze some (raspberries freeze well) and of course, make one of my favourite summer desserts: berry pudding.

Berry pudding (also called summer pudding) is packed with goodness and bursting with flavour.  It is a perfect dessert for a hot Australian Christmas that falls in the middle of the berry season and by far healthier and more refreshing than a traditional Christmas pudding.  Its crimson red colour and green garnish match perfectly the traditional Christmas theme.

The summer berry pudding recipe

The berry pudding is really easy to prepare.  There are only three ingredients needed plus cream to serve:

• 10 slices of day old white bread, 1cm (1/2in) thick
• 1 kg (2.2 lb) mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, redcurrants or other)
• 60 g (2.1 oz) sugar
• cream to serve, fresh berries, mint or similar for decoration

Serves 6-8

For the above quantity you’ll need a 1.5 l (6 cups) capacity bowl.   For smaller or individual puddings, here is the ratio I use to adjust the ingredients:

For every 250g or fruit use 10g of sugar and 1 cup (250ml) capacity dish.  Simply remember

250g – 10g – 250ml

The quantity for bread is a bit trickier to give as it depends on the type of bread and the slice thickness.  However, if you make individual puddings, you’ll need more bread.

The Method

1. Slice the bread and remove the crusts.  Place the first slice at the base of the bowl and then the rest around, overlapping slightly



2. Put the berries and the sugar in the saucepan and bring to boil.  Simmer for about 5 minutes or till juices start to run.  Spoon slightly cooled fruit mixture into the bread lined bowl.  If there is plenty of juice, leave some for serving.
3. Cover the top with the remaining bread slices (fold over side slices first).
4. Put a plate on the bowl and weigh it down with whatever is in the fridge: milk cartons, jars of jam or bottles of sauces.  Refrigerate for at least 6-8 hours or even better overnight (great dessert to prepare ahead for a busy day).  To catch any juices oozing over the brim, put a plate underneath the bowl.
5. To serve, remove the plate, loosen the sides of the pudding with a spatula or a knife, place the serving plate on the top and invert the pudding onto the plate.  Pour the reserved juice if any left, decorate with fresh berries, mint leaves or to your liking.  I’ve used pineapple sage leaves to decorate my summer berry pudding on the picture above.  Serve with whipped cream.

The pudding on the picture I made in January this year and is slightly smaller (4 cup capacity).  Besides being easy to make, healthy and really yummy, the pudding is a great way to use some dried out bread.  For more idea on how to use the old bread read the post 12 ways to use up old bread.

Few more tips:

Bread: A homemade white loaf or one from the baker works better than a pre-sliced sandwich or toast bread (too soft to hold the shape), wholemeal, seeded, some sourdough or breads with large holes like ciabbata.  Make sure not to press or flatten the slices when arranging in the bowl or they won’t soak up the juice.  This especially applies to shop bought white toast bread.

Sweet breads like brioche are also suitable for the summer berry pudding.

Fruit: Frozen berries can be used too.  Prepare it the same way as fresh berries.

You can substitute 1/3 to 1/2 of the berry quantity needed with some other type of fruit like peaches or plums if berries are too pricey or you’re short of the amount needed.

Bowl: glass or ceramic (china) bowl works well, but you can use any provided it’s not too big or too deep so you don’t end up with a pudding that is difficult to serve or collapses.  No need to line the bowl with the cling wrap or to oil it.

Freezing: Berry pudding freezes well, but allow the time in the fridge first to let the bread to soak up juices before freezing.

Food intolerance: Served without cream this dessert is dairy free.  Substitute coconut cream for whipped cream if desired.  If you use gluten free bread, summer berry pudding becomes an healthy and easy gluten free dessert.

Enjoy!

Orange cake is a special treat, especially in winter when cakes with apples and pears dominate.  Many recipes involve boiling the orange for an hour or so – the length of the process always puts me off.

This flourless orange cake recipe is simple and the cake is all done and ready to eat in less than 1 hour. In addition it’s gluten free and dairy free – great for people with Celiac disease and lactose intolerance.

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 170g (¾ cup, 6 oz) sugar
• 2 tablespoon vanilla sugar, bought or homemade.
• Juice and rind form 1 large organic orange,
• 300g (2¾-3 cup, 10 oz) ground almonds (almond meal)

Glaze (optional)

• 200g (7 oz) orange marmalade
• Juice and rind form 1 organic orange

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F)
2. Separate the eggs and beat the eggwhite until soft peaks form.
3. Add yolks, beat for a few more minutes.  Beating the eggwhites first on its own speeds up the process.
4. With the mixer on, gradually add sugar and vanilla sugar until the mixture is pale and all the sugar has been dissolved.
5. Add juice and orange rind, mix briefly.
6. Fold the almond meal carefully trough the batter.
7. Pour the mixture into a 25 cm (10 in) round cake springform tin, lined with baking paper or greased and sprinkled with ground almonds – save some baking paper (see photo below).  For a higher cake, choose a smaller tin.  I used 28 cm (11 in) as I like thinner slices and the cake bakes quicker.



8. Bake for 20 minutes.  A tin smaller than 28 cm might need additional time.
9. Run a knife around the edges and loosen the springform ring.  Let the cake cool down slightly then transfer carefully onto the cooling rack or serving plate. Because there is no flour in the cake, it won’t be springy but rather soft and crumbly.

While the cake is baking, prepare the glaze:

1. Warm the orange marmalade slightly.
2. Add the orange juice and rind and incorporate well.
3. Spread onto the  slightly cooled cake.

The orange cake looks more attractive with the glaze, but I often skip it as it is bursting with flavour on its own.

Enjoy!

Sataraš (pronounced sah-tah-rush) is a quick and simple vegetarian recipe very popular in South-Eastern Europe.  It is easy to make and usually prepared during the summer and early autumn days when there are plenty of capsicums (peppers) and ripe tomatoes in the garden.

Sataraš has four main ingredients: brown onions, capsicum (pepper), tomatoes and garlic.  Optional ingredients are eggplant (aubergine), parsley or eggs, but I prefer it in its simplest version.

The best capsicums for sataraš are pale yellow capsicums, also known as Hungarian (on the picture below).  They are very fragrant, have mild taste, thin skin and cook quickly.  If you can’t find them, use yellow or red capsicums.

I’ve recently prepared sataraš from the last batch of autumn crop and can’t wait till the next season.  I don’t like to make it during the winter though when the ingredients are out of season.  Somehow it doesn’t taste right.

The recipe:

For this easy and healthy vegetarian dish you need:

• 2 large brown onions, sliced into wedges
• 10-12 yellow Hungarian, or 4-6 large red capsicums, sliced,
• 3 medium size ripe tomatoes, cut into slices, peeled and deseeded if preferred, but not necessary
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
• 2-3 tbsp oil
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Instructions:

1.      Put the oil into a large pan over medium heat and add the onions.

2.      Cook the onions until translucent (but not brown) mixing occasionally

3.      Add sliced capsicum, turn the heat up and stir-fry until the capsicum softens, about 3-4 minutes.  Here I added one green capsicum as well.

4.      Add sliced tomatoes, fry for a minute, then cover and lover the heat.  Simmer for further 5 minutes.

5.      Put the sliced garlic into the pan, season with salt and pepper, cover, and give it a couple of minutes for the garlic to cook and to infuse the flavour.

There you are:  simple and healthy vegetarian dish ready in less than 30 minutes!

Serve sataraš with a fresh crusty bread or with rice.  It’s suitable for freezing.

During the holidays, as many parents know, kids expect you to entertain them from morning till dawn.  Unless the day is action packed, it’s a “boring” day and “I don’t have anything to do” day.

On one of those days, we made a batch of homemade playdough (play dough).  In summer, we tend to spend more time outside and kids didn’t play with it for a while.  Not only  did the playdough keep them occupied for hours – to mum and dad’s delight, but also there is an educational element to it: development of fine motor skills, blending colours, exploring senses like touch and feel, to name a few.

Instructions on how to make homemade playdough:

This is a simple no cook playdough recipe which you can make within minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• ½ cup salt
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 cup boiling water
• natural or food colouring (eg. beetroot, turmeric powder), optional

Note:  Increase the above amounts two or three times for more playdough which can be divided and coloured differently.

In a bowl mix all dry ingredients.

Add oil, liquid colouring and boiling water (warn kids if they are helping!) and stir until it all comes together.

This is a proper way. As you can see above, I usually put dry and wet ingredients all at once and then stir. Here I added a bit of beetroot juice, but, oops, forgot to add oil.  Still it came good.

Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it until it becomes smooth. If the playdough is still too hot to touch, leave to cool a bit.

Divide into several portions and add different colouring few drops at the time to each. Knead well into the playdough.

Store in an airtight container after play time.  It will dry out quickly otherwise.

Last step, but not the least, have fun and play with your kids (for a little while)! It’s very therapeutic for adults, too, as you can see in the picture below !

On the McKenzie’s Cream of tartar packet there is cooked playdough recipe if you prefer this method:

2 cups four

4 tablespoons cream of tartar

2 tablespoons cooking oil

1 cup salt

food colouring

2 cups of water

Mix the above ingredients in a saucepan, and stir over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until the mixture congeals.

Few more tips:

• For a textured playdough, add some oats, dried lavender or herbs.
• Add a few drops of natural cooking essence like orange, peppermint or almond for a nice smell, but omit if that will tempt small kids into eating the playdough – it IS natural, but way too salty.
• If the kids manage to eat some, don’t be alarmed, it won’t hurt them, they’ll just be very thirsty!
• Be alarmed if they eat commercial playdough – it is full of chemicals, with a weird sweet smell.
• Once the playdough starts to smell rancid, dries out or gets very dirty, it’s time to make another batch.

A lot in this post!

We are big fans of u-pick or pick your own fruit and  berries.  U-pick means you go to the farms and pick the fruit yourself.  It is good in many ways:

• buying locally
• the freshest produce
• reducing rubbish (with byo containers)
• money goes direct to the farmer, no middleman
• fruit tastes great without time spent in refrigerators
• low food mileage attached, provided you don’t travel for hours to the farms
• great outing and fun for the kids
• cheaper produce – buying in bulk.

Farmgate  buying is similar:  you buy fruit or veggies at the farm, but already picked, mostly freshly that same day.  We usually combine u-pick and farmgate.

Our two favourite areas for u-pick in Melbourne region are the Dandenongs (blueberries, cherries, peaches, beans, raspberries) and Kinglake (raspberries, strawberries).

If you are a reader from Australia, you might have guessed the connection between frozen raspberry yogurt and bushfires.  As mentioned, we often went to Kinglake for raspberries u-pick.  Kinglake is a small town burned in the February bushfires.  The famous Kinglake raspberry farm has been partly destroyed, but several plots have survived and now have autumn raspberries for u-pick.

We went there last week.  The idea was to support farms and business that have survived and/or reopened.  We had to brace ourselves for what we were about to see:  vast areas of burned trees and houses.  Hard to describe.  We were the only people picking on the farm that afternoon: weird feeling knowing that on such a beautiful, school holiday day the farm would be so busy.  However, people still aren’t sure if it’s OK to come.

Talking to the locals, they would love to see more people coming, to boost the local business activity.  So, if you live in the Melbourne area, it would be great to visit the bushfire affected communities and spend some money: pick the fruit, have a lunch or coffee, support business running.   See on the internet or call first to check if the roads are open to where you intend to go. For more info about Kinglake raspberries visit their website:

http://www.kinglake-raspberries.com.au/index.htm

The freshly picked raspberries at our place have almost disappeared: we ate most of them, froze some and made a batch of frozen raspberry yogurt.

Here is the frozen raspberry yogurt recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup natural yogurt
• 300 g (0.6 lb) fresh raspberries
• 150 g (0.3 lb) caster sugar or icing (confectionery) sugar

Method:

1. Mash or puree the raspberries.  Sieve to remove the pips, optional
2. Add sugar and yogurt to the raspberries and mix together.
3. Pour into the ice cream machine and churn according to the manufacturer instructions.
4. Optional: add grated white chocolate when the mixture starts to freeze.
5. Transfer to a freezer safe container and keep in the freezer.

Frozen yogurt is healthier alternative to ice cream.  Our kids love it as much as ice cream and are happy with a serve of frozen yogurt (especially if it has white chocolate bits).  If you don’t have the ice cream machine, you can freeze the yogurt in the freezer, but have to mix it several times during the freezing process with a hand blender or fork to break the ice crystals.  Use frozen raspberries if fresh aren’t in season.

When I announce Pancakes for breakfast! our kids ask immediately: thick or thin? Thin pancakes are actually crepes and thick are pancakes. Considered as a French specialty, crepes are widespread and very common throughout continental Europe: if you order pancakes, chances are you’ll get crepes.

Our son likes “thin” pancakes (read crepes) and our daughter “thick” ones, pancakes, that is. So when I make the latter, I thin out the last batch of the batter to runny consistency and make a few crepe-like pancakes. But still have to alternate between the two varieties.

My favourite pancake recipe is with buttermilk. Buttermilk pancakes are thick and spongy with less fat needed to achieve the softness. There is always buttermilk in our fridge as I make my own buttermilk. If you don’t have buttermilk, you can substitute it with regular milk (1 cup) mixed with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, apple cider or vinegar and let it stand 5-10 minutes.

The buttermilk pancake recipe:

2 cups plain flour (if using self raising flour, omit bicarb and baking powder)

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2 tablespoon melted butter or oil

2 cups buttermilk

1. Mix all dry ingredients together.
2. Beat the eggs and add melted butter or oil.
3. Add one cup of buttermilk to the eggs, mix well.
4. Pour buttermilk and eggs mixture into dry ingredients and mix all quickly into a thick batter with a whisker. By adding half the required liquid first the batter will be smooth and without clumps.
5. Now add the second cup of buttermilk and incorporate gently. Add more buttermilk if the batter is too thick.
6. At this stage you can add some corn, herbs, grated cheese or carrot for savoury or chopped fruit or berries for the sweet version.
7. Pour the batter into medium hot oiled pan or griddle – about ¼ of cup or more for larger pancakes. Cook as many at the time as you can fit in your pan without sticking together.
8. Turn over when bubbles appear on the top and cook the other side until golden.
9. Serve warm.

This is a simple buttermilk pancake recipe without sugar. We love it with avocado or other savoury spreads as well as jam or honey, hence the jam will lend the sweetness. To make sweet pancake batter just add 2-3 tablespoons of sugar to the flour when mixing dry ingredients.