Pancake

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A winner in the Bon Appétit Recipes Sweepstakes, a reader poll conducted in honor of our 50th anniversary.

The New Prospect Café, a health-oriented restaurant and catering company in Park Slope, Brooklyn, includes these curried sweet potato fritters on their Hanukkah menu. Add some fresh grated ginger to the pancakes for an Asian touch. Sweet potatoes need the flour to give the pancakes body.

Eggs and fat were once forbidden during the 40-day Lenten fast, so on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent, Irish bakers would make pancakes to use up their stores of those ingredients.

These get a lift from allspice, too.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

When Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield went looking for a loan to start their first ice cream store in Burlington, Vermont, the future fathers of Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia were told by a local banker that they'd need to serve something other than just ice cream to make it through the lean winter months. So they sold crepes stuffed with ice cream and doused with hot fudge sauce. "Talk about comfort food," says Cohen, who wasn't above snitching occasional leftovers as they came through the kitchen. "They were great—an amazing synergy of crepe, ice cream and sauce." This recipe, which features luscious cooked pears in addition to ice cream, yields a few extra crepes. Cool and stack the leftovers, separating them with sheets of plastic wrap; then place them in a resealable plastic bag and freeze for later use. Or rewarm the crepes and serve with jam or maple syrup for breakfast the next morning.

"When I was a kid, corn was often served with the turkey dinner in our house," says Jim Fobel, cookbook author. "Even though corn season was over, my mom thought that it seemed appropriate for the meal. Here, I've used corn to make little pancakes. The good news is that they can be made a day ahead and then rewarmed in the oven just before serving."

(CREPES DE NOIX AUX FRAMBOISE ET FIGUES) In Provence, crepes are often served simply, embellished with sugar, jam or liqueur. Here, they get dressed up a bit more.

Team the pancakes with sausages, and offer tea, coffee and fresh juices.

Vary these pancakes, if desired, by sprinkling one-fourth cup blueberries, raisins or even chocolate chips over each pancake before turning it to finish cooking.

Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Flour, first marketed in 1899, was America’s original ready-mix food. Until the mix became nationally available in 1910, Americans thought of pancakes only as a hearty wintertime breakfast. But with the convenience offered by a mix, flapjacks were established as a quick anytime meal. Here, we’ve taken a few modern liberties with the favorite breakfast standby, with great results.