Gone Fishin', Day 3 - Hard Cider Pancakes

It's National Pancake Day!

Soooo...I was working to do a week's worth of entries for the fishing crew. Truth be known, I could not have picked a worse time to try and do that! I tried to do it in the same week of my birthday. My 40TH birthday, to which I was hosting family coming in for the festivities...and festivities that I was attempting to plan and do all by myself since hubby was so busy at work.

Honestly, my intentions were good. They really were. I had all sorts of recipes and ideas written down to do, and I will still get to them...but alas, I am tardy.

So one of my things I was working on was cider pancakes. I have made these before using whole wheat pancake mix, Woodchuck Granny Smith cider, and fresh diced apples. Of course, when we're talking super portable this pretty much takes the cake. Er, the pancake, that is.

It really can't get much easier than this, guys. Toss the mix in a bowl, add cider, stir, cook. I also like to punch it up a little bit by adding a little sprinkle of cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg to the batter. The trick to a great pancake is to keep the skillet over medium low, and flip it just when the edges start to look a little dry.

The trick to the perfect pancake, however, is something that can either be the hardest or the easiest thing in the world to learn. That is this: the first pancake is always a hot mess. Let it go to the pancake gods and keep moving. Hubby refers to this as the tester pancake to make sure it's fit for human consumption.

Ha!

For this particular pack, it used a little over 1/2 of the bottle of cider and made 8 pancakes. So either double the packs for one bottle of cider, or use the leftover cider to reduce with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to make a yummy little syrup  for your pancakes! (which is especially yummy with some of those chopped apples mentioned above in it as well)

Oh yeah...that's good stuff.

I see a million different combinations with this based on all of the different kinds of beer that is out there. Try your hand at all of them! The only thing I might suggest is to watch using a dark beer like a stout, simply for no other reason than I could see the pancake turning bitter on you. Have fun!