Peanut Butter & Jelly Pancakes

Before I had the genius idea to stick peanut butter in between the stacks

If yesterday wasn’t a hurricane, then I can’t begin to fathom what it must be like to experience a hurricane. Winds were gusting at 70mph and we had a torrential downpour of rain (5 inches worth or so). Trees in some areas toppled, rail services were suspended, and highways flooded. It was quite the mess. Around 9:30pm, Glen gchat-ed me saying, “Ha, my sister is sleeping in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot because all the roads leading to our house have flooded and been closed.” Though in some ways that was a bit comical, we couldn’t have that so she ended up spending the night here.

With the time change and the never-ending gloomy weather, I woke up craving the pancakes that I intended to make yesterday. I wanted something simple and basic, if anything, just pure homey and comforting. Awhile ago, I did this insane thing called the master cleanse detox. I don’t know what I was thinking, but for five days, I lived off a concoction of water, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice. In other words, I consumed a whole bottle jug of maple syrup. Hence why I’ve never keep maple syrup in the fridge.

So the purple sauce isn’t made from syrup nor blueberries. It’s made from grape jam! I think it’s a satisfying and easy DIY alternative to the usual maple syrup. Oh, and halfway through, I had this idea to stick a sliver of peanut butter in between the stacks. Ridiculousness. It was like having a peanut butter jelly pancake!

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Peanut Butter & Jelly Pancakes
Martha Stewart’s Basic Pancakes
(Makes 6 pancakes)
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Pancake Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tbsp vanilla
• PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY!

Jelly Sauce Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp jam
• 1/8 cup water

Pancake Recipe:

Have two bowls on the ready. In the first bowl, whisk together milk, oil, vanilla, and egg. In the second bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar, and. baking powder.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and continue whisking until just moistened. Make sure you do not over mix as you’ll destroy all that fluffiness. A few small lumps of flour are okay.

Heat a large skillet and griddle over medium with butter. For each pancake, spoon 2 to 3 tablespoons of batter onto the skillet, using the back of the spoon to spread batter into a round shape. You can also use a rubber spatula to shape out the perimeter of the pancakes. Cook until the surface bubbles, flip, and cook for 1-2 more minutes.

Jelly Sauce Recipe:

In a clean saucepan, heat the water and jam together. Keep stirring. This gets to be a bit of watch and wait sort of thing. You want to dissolve all the jam into the water, but the whole point is to decrease the jam’s viscosity. So when the mixture starts bubbling you and have a steady drip from the back of a spoon, it’s done. It may still seem watery, but since the mixture is very hot, it will continue to cook. If it ends up reducing too much and getting too sticky, dilute with hot water and keep mixing.

Serve the pancakes warm and in between stacks, spread some peanut butter. Then drizzle the stack with the jelly sauce. In the end, just adding that thin layer of peanut butter wasn’t enough. Heck, I scooped out a hefty portion and started dipping the pancake in it!

You should also check out:

• Phensri’s “Fantastic” Thai New Year’s Party
• Baked eggs with coarse dijon
• Poached egg with Sriracha mayo
• Sweet red bean ebelskivers
• Pickled mustard greens (芥菜) in fried rice

Tagged as: Pancakes