24/7 Pancakes

There’s this great restaurant in Austin called Magnolia Café, and one of its best qualities is that it’s 24 hours. Another great quality is the food: you can get breakfast anytime (which includes pancakes and migas), Tex-Mex (like enchiladas and queso famously known as ‘Mag Mud’) and also some good basic American stuff (a delicious veggie sandwich to name one). I used to hate breakfast growing up, probably because it came at 7 am before school. Now I love it, especially at anytime of day, and I get my fix with Magnolia’s gingerbread pancakes.

Without my Magnolia here, I tried my hand at a batch of gingerbread pancakes, also because for those Brits, pancakes are more like our crepes. Strangely enough, mine turned out pretty thin, almost like a thick crepe. I found a recipe online that said they were Magnolia’s own, but I found the batter to be a little watery and they were lacking in spice, so I suggest throwing in more flour, more sugar, and more of each spice and you should end up with something very tasty.



Gingerbread Pancakes
From Magnolia Café found on foodnetwork.com

3 eggs
¼ c brown sugar (I suggest at least ½ cup)
1 c buttermilk
½ water (you could cut back on that to make them less runny)
¼ c brewed coffee (I think I cut the water out and made ½ c coffee)
2 ½ all purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ salt
1 tsp ground clove
1 Tbsp of each: cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg
4 Tbsp butter melted

First, mix eggs and brown sugar in a bowl, then add the buttermilk, water (if you’re using water) and coffee, and mix well. In another bowl (or just on top of the wet ingredients), combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Mix well with the liquid ingredients and stir in some melted butter (if it’s looking a bit runny, cut back on the butter.) If you’re not happy with the consistency, add more flour and brown sugar. Now fire up the grill (hopefully you did this before, even though I didn’t mention it) to medium high heat. I’d say do a little test pancake because I did and found that it was very thin and the spices still didn’t come through, so I put in more of each spice. After this, I tried a second one and they did come out thicker and tastier, so don’t hesitate. I also served with some fried eggs and my greasy stand-by, xistorra. But I think they’d go well with some slightly sweetened crème fraiche or fruit.