Simple Beer Pancakes

In theory, neither making pancakes or blogging is difficult. In reality, I am absurdly lazy...so neither ever really gets done. 2 weeks ago, while visiting Carolyn, I decided to do something about this: I made beer pancakes! Unfortunately, it has taken me 2 weeks to get around to posting this, but I guess that's better than never.


These pancakes are the original way that I made beer pancakes and are by far the easiest way to add beer to your breakfast. I just bought some instant pancake mix and instead of adding water, I add beer. No one can mess this up.

Ok, so here is one way you can mess this up: not having a griddle or any pans suitable for pancake making. This saucepan made flipping a little more difficult than expected (Carolyn and I were not in either of our home kitchens and had to make due).

Thank goodness I am a flipping master! I dug my spatula in there and got it under that pancake.

Once you can pick it up with the spatula, the flipping part isn't very difficult.

Carolyn made some nice apple wedges for the pancakes using apples, sugar, butter and cinnamon. Steps: melt butter; add apples, cook for a bit; add sugar and cinnamon...do not burn. At least, we think that's what we did...maybe next time we will take notes.

My plating/garnishing skills leave a little to be desired, but you get the idea.

Cheers!

Coffee and Pancakes

Java Head Stout Pancakes with Espresso Maple syrup

Sometime I feel that the beer flavor in my pancakes just isnt strong enough. I decided that I needed to use a beer with a bit more in your face flavor and I chose Troegs Java Head coffee stout. This is a great beer with nice coffee flavors and lots of roasted malts. Since it was just me eating the pancakes, I took my normal recipe (here, just replace with a beer of your choice) and just did 1/3 of each of the ingredients. It works out nicely, because you only use 1 cup of beer and that gives you a little left over for drinking.

For the pancakes
Dry:
1 Cups AP flour
1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 Tablespoon melted butter

Wet:
1 egg
1 cup beer (Troegs JavaHead)

You may (or not) notice that I switched the butter over to the dry side. I hoped that adding the butter to the flour would stop the butter from getting all lumpy like it does when you add it to the cool beer and egg, but it just makes the flour lumpy and the batter thin and lumpy. In the end, the pancakes were more like lumpy crepes, but they tasted GREAT!!!

To continue the coffee theme for the morning, I wanted to make a coffee syrup to put on the pancakes. I really dont know anything about making syrup, so I just took a shot of espresso and dumped it into my maple syrup. Delicious! (Ok, so the syrup was thin too, but it was still good)

I think that I will be experimenting more with dark beers in my pancakes. Today was a success.

My "famous" Wheat Beer Pancakes with Beer-nana fosters sauce

Why famous? Because it was served at the Philly Beer Scene Magazine/Hawthorne's Beer Geek Breakfast along with one other of my recipes and a recipe from my fiancee. It was all part of an epic beer weekend that included getting engaged (I'm sorry that I don't have a story for you, but it was a beer filled weekend and I woke up on Sunday with a hangover and a fiancee...).

Philly Beer Scene Magazine (@phillybeerscene) had a recipe contest for beer-infused brunch recipes. The top picks from each of the 4 categories would be served at Hawthorne's for the Beer Geek Brunch. Carolyn and I took 3 of the 4 categories! I will post my second recipe later and hopefully I can get Carolyn to do a guest post with her recipe.

My first recipe is a standard beer pancakes recipe with Troegs Dreamweaver Wheat and a sauce inspired by bananas foster made with Victory Golden Monkey (belgian tripel) instead of rum. The only thing really missing from this recipe is a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Wheat beer pancakes with Beernana Fosters sauce:

For the pancakes
Dry:
3 Cups AP flour
3/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 Tablespoon kosher salt

Wet:
3 eggs
3 cups wheat beer (Troegs Dream Weaver Wheat)
2 Tablespoons melted butter
3 Tablespoons maple syrup

Mix together dry ingredients. Whisk together wet ingredients and when thoroughly combined, add to dry ingredients. Whisk until they come together as a lumpy batter. No need to overmix trying to get the lumps out. Ladle 1/4 cup portions of the batter on a 350 degree F griddle. Flip when bubbles set on the surface and cook until golden brown.

For the Beernana Foster Sauce
1 stick of butter (8 Tablespoons or a half cup)
1 Cup brown sugar
1 Cup Tripel ale (Victory Golden monkey)
8 bananas sliced into bite sized rounds

Melt butter and brown sugar together on low heat and then add the tripel. As this mixture reduces, add the banana slices and cook until slightly softened and coated with the syrup.

To assemble: Place desired number of pancakes on plate, top with sauce.