Christmas Pancakes, RECIPES!!!

For our Christmas breakfast, I like to make Gingerbread Pancakes, a spiced syrup, and Chicken Sausage patties. It's SO delicious. And I miss it...I haven't made it in a couple of Christmas, but I'm going to this year.

Gingerbread Pancakes
3 eggs
1/2c brown sugar
1c buttermilk
1/2 water
1/4c brewed coffee
2 1/2c flour
1/2t baking powder
1/4t baking soda
1/2t salt
1t ground cloves
1T ground cinnamon
1T ground ginger
1T ground nutmeg
4T butter melted

In a large bowl, beat egg, then mix in brown sugar. Add buttermilk, water and coffee, stirring. Mix together, in another bowl, all dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to the liquid, stirring until just combined. Stir in melted butter. Cook on hot griddle.

**my notes. This is a crazy amount of ingredients. To make it easier, measure all the spices into a small dish first, and then put them away. That way you can just toss them in when you get to it. I sort of hate having a billion containers out when I'm trying to work, but I have a small kitchen.
For the liquids: you can use regular milk AND a large measuring cup for this. Add the milk to the cup, add 3/4c water and stir in a T of instant coffee. Speeds things right up, you can dump it all in at once.

Mulled Maple Syrup. This is Rachel Ray's recipe, so I'll certainly give her credit, although in all honesty, she TOTALLY gets on my nerves with all of her shouting and her saying "ex- ACT-ly!!!!" about every freaking thing.

2 cups maple syrup
1 cinnamon stick
1 large piece orange rind
3 whole cloves

Place syrup in a small sauce pot. Turn heat on low. Add cinnamon stick to the pot. Stud the orange rind with cloves and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove spices with slotted spoon and transfer to a serving pitcher.

Chicken Sausage Patties
1T butter
1 green apple, finely chopped
1 sm onion, finely chopped
salt and pepper
1t fennel seed
1 1/2lbs ground chicken breast (just process in the food processor)
1 1/2t poultry seasoning
1t allspice
1t sweet paprika
3T olive oil

Heat the butter in a non-stick skillet, add the next four ingredients. Saute until softened, about 5m. Remove from heat, cool. Heat griddle on medium.
In a bowl combine all remaining ingredients, and stir in onion mixture. Make into 12 patties and cook 3-4 m per side on the griddle.


Since we're on the topic of pancakes, I thought I'd share my everyday pancake recipe, and my recipe for regular pancake syrup.

Pancakes (4 servings)

1c milk
1 egg
1T oil
2T sugar
1/2 salt
1 1/2t baking powder
1 1/2c flour

combine liquids, then stir in the dry ingredients. Use 1/4c batter per pancake, cook on hot griddle.

Pancake Syrup.
this is my FAVORITE!!!
3 c sugar
1 1/2 c water
1/4c molasses (or a little more)
1t vanilla
2t butter flavoring (probably made from poison, but so YUMMY!!)
1t maple extract (I can't find this anywhere, so I use maple flavoring)

Bring all to a boil until sugar dissolves, stirring the whole time. Turn off the burner but keep pot on the burner until the bubbling stops.

I store mine in a canning jar b/c I haven't found (or looked for) something from which it's easier to pour...but I'm sure there's SOMETHING!!


Enjoy!!