Cooking with Caprece - Homemade Pancakes and Syrups

Waking up to the smell of sugar, maple, butter, and batter were a common and favorite experience on my visits with Caprece. She made a warm breakfast nearly every day of her life as mother and wife. Maybe because we grew up in a home of working mother and grandmother and rarely had a hot breakfast it spurred us to give this to our own families but whatever the reason it is a glorious thing! She made things other than pancakes like waffles, French toast, and scrambled eggs but my favorite was her pancakes. They are so simple to make that whipping them together takes about as much time as putting together a bowl of cold cereal. Now if I have a choice between cold cereal and hot fluffy, melt in your mouth pancakes well…I am sure you know the choice I would make. The syrups are just as easy and ohhhhhhhh so yummy!

Pancakes

• 2 cups flour

• 2 TBS baking powder

• 2 TBS sugar

• 2 TBS oil

• 1 tsp salt

• 2 eggs

• Milk

Grease your griddle or skillet. Heat your griddle to 350 degrees or a skillet on your stove to medium-low heat. Mix all ingredients together adding milk a little at a time until you reach the desired thickness – this depends on whether you like thick or thin pancakes…the more milk you add the thinner the batter and therefore the thinner the pancakes. We like ours thick and fluffy so we add about 1-1.5 cups of milk. Pour batter onto heated surface using ¼ measuring cup and cook flipping once. Makes approximately 10 pancakes.

Buttermilk Syrup

• ½ cup buttermilk

• ½ cup butter

• 1 cup sugar

• ½ tsp baking soda

Mix the first 3 ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda. Serve warm over pancakes, waffles, French toast etc… NOTE** Due to the amount of butter in this syrup I don’t put any butter on my pancakes when I use it. Makes about 2 cups. Doesn’t keep well so only make what you think will be used at meal.

Maple Syrup

• 1 cup water

• 2 cups sugar

• ½ tsp Mapleine

Mix all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and serve warm over pancakes etc… Makes about 2 cups and keeps very well in a mason jar or something similar.