Light and fluffy lemon ricotta pancakes drizzled with raspberry syrup. The ricotta adds a rich, fluffy texture and combined with the beaten egg whites makes pancakes that are light as air. 

My sweet friend Tiffany, Food Finery, invited me to her house to make homemade ricotta cheese and pasta. My husband gave me a pasta attachment for my KitchenAid mixer and we broke it in by making linguine. My daughter wanted to have Linguine and Clam Sauce for dinner, so I decided to use the ricotta cheese the next morning in pancakes.

I searched for a great ricotta pancake recipe, and the recipe on the William Sonoma website got rave reviews. I altered the recipe by blending the ricotta with the other liquid ingredients in the blender so it was nice and smooth. I increased the ingredients so the recipe would make enough pancakes to feed my crowd. The original recipe called for cake flour and I made my own cake flour by combining corn starch with the flour.

Although there are several steps and plenty of dishes required to make these pancakes, all the steps are easy and I loved these pancakes. The bright lemon flavor and light fluffy texture is a perfect match for the sweet/tart raspberry syrup. It’s like adding a little sunshine to your morning.

We had a few left over that I ate the next morning for breakfast and they reheated very well and were still light and fluffy.

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Yield: about 20 pancakes

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

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Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 3 minutes

Total Time 18 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour*
• 1/4 cup cornstarch*
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 5 eggs, separated
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Instructions

1. Preheat griddle to 325º. (This is a thick batter and needs to cook at a slightly lower heat, because they brown up quickly.)
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and cornstarch until well combine; whisk in baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and continue beating until soft peaks form.
4. In blender jar add the ricotta, milk, egg yolks, sugar, lemon zest and juice and pulse until smooth. Add to flour mixture and mix until just combined.
5. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the beaten egg whites into the pancake batter.
6. Spray the griddle with nonstick cooking spray. Ladle 1/3 cup batter onto the griddle for each pancake. Cook until bubbles form on top and the pancakes are golden underneath, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip the pancakes and cook for 1 minute more. Repeat with the remaining batter.

Notes

*The original called for cake flour

adapted from William Sonoma

Note: We used the Epicurious ricotta recipe and had to add twice as much vinegar to get it to form a curd. If you’re were using it in a savory dish (Tiff used her’s in a brown butter pasta sauce) you’ll want to add 3-4 teaspoons of salt. I didn’t add any salt to the ricotta I used in the pancakes.

More breakfast recipes you might like:

Cornmeal Lemon Ricotta Waffles with Strawberry Rhubarb Compote, Barbara Bakes
Bananas Foster Coconut Pancakes, Barbara Bakes
Healthy Whole Grain Waffles, Our Best Bites
Orange Pancakes with Berry-Orange Sauce, Iowa Girl Eats
Chocolate Pancakes With Strawberry Syrup, Sweet Basil