Chocolate or coffee?  Which ingredient controls my mind the most?  Coffee may win out just a hair with its zero-calorie-yet-complex-and-indulgent attribute, but chocolate comes in at a close second.  I received an amazing cookbook for Christmas from Matt.  The Mast Brothers Chocolate cookbook.  It’s stunning.  A voyage in pictures and recipes in the lives of Rick and Michael Mast – two brothers who make and sell chocolate in New York City.  The pictures are dark and stunning and the stories are as wholesome and exciting as the product they sell.  Everything from a sustainable source, every ingredient in their chocolate from a farmer they literally know and have probably had dinner with.  Nothing they do is the easy way out and it’s an amazing way of life to aspire to, and a joy of a book to read through like a novel.

One of the recipes that caught both Matt’s and my eye was the dark chocolate and ricotta pancakes.  I’m usually on the lookout for something special to fix us for breakfast on Saturday and that recipe just jumped off the page.  The picture showed these nearly-burned pancakes (although not burned – just super dark chocolate) and browned butter frothing around the edges.  Sold.  All the recipes in this book (if you can procure some really great chocolate) are simple and straight-forward.  Hardly any recipe takes up more than a paragraph and so it all seems so accessible.  I used Lindt 70%, our favorite dark chocolate that you can actually find in a grocery store.  The results were amazing – your classic chocolate chip pancake bumped up a notch.  Enjoy and take your Saturday morning a bit slower!

Dark Chocolate Ricotta Pancakes*
makes 10-12 small pancakes

3 eggs, separated
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons sugar
1 pinch kosher salt
2/3 cup AP flour
3 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

In a medium bowl, whisk egg yolks with ricotta cheese, milk, sugar, and salt.  Add flour and chocolate and combine.
In a separate bowl using a handheld mixer, beat egg whites to soft peaks.  Fold the egg whites into the flour-ricotta mixture.

Melt one tablespoon of butter for each batch of pancakes in a large cast iron skillet over medium heat.  Ladle batter onto pan in 4-inch circles.  When the edges brown and batter bubbbles, flip pancakes.  They are pretty messy, so just do your best.

Serve with maple syrup and a cup of black coffee and rejoice.

*adapted from Mast Brothers Chocolate: A Family Cookbook