Better-than-Village-Inn’s Pecan Pancakes: another 5MBM

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It has been a couple weeks since I’ve posted a 5 Minute Breakfast Mission*, and I’ve got so many of them on the docket for you, Gentle Reader! It seems that breakfast has become very important to the happiness level of our home–after a summer’s worth of grab-and-go breakfasts, it feels luxurious and cozy to settle down with a hot bevvie (a second cuppa coffee for me, usually hot tea or chocolate for the kids), the school books, our sketchpads, our Bibles, and a good hot breakfast.

That little Mack has made. 🙂

Now wholegrain pancakes with homemade syrup and yogurt and roasted pecans probably sounds a bit fancy for a 5-minute breakfast, especially one that an 8-year-old is making, but the key is that the mama (or the papa, or the sweetest older sister) may need to help with a bit of prep work the evening before, and believe me–it will be well worth the trouble.

So, shall we get started? Here are the things that will have to be done the day before, in order for this breakfast to truly be part of our 5 Minute Breakfast Missions, in other words, for an 8-year-old to be able to make them in (approximately) 5 minutes or so.

The day before, do the following:

• Roast a couple handfuls of pecans (or walnuts): just toss them into a cast iron skillet while you’re doing other kitchen chores, put the heat on very low, and stir them every now and then. Let them heat up until they give off a nice toasty smell, being very careful not to burn them, and remove from heat when they’re done.
• Mix up your dry ingredients for the pancakes (recipe below). Your 8-year-old can do this, too, of course, if you’ve taught him or her a few kitchen skills, which (of course) you have.
• Make your syrup**: Bring to a rolling boil the following: 1 and 1/2 cups water, 3 cups dark brown sugar, 3 Tb molasses or honey, 1/2 tsp maple extract, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp butter flavoring. Once it boils up in the pot, turn off the heat underneath it, but leave it on the burner (watch it so it doesn’t boil over!) until it cools.

That’s it! Now all that will need to be done is to mix up the pancake batter and cook the pancakes. Can it be done in 5 minutes? Well. Nobody’s watching the clock at this point–everybody is standing in line for hot pancakes, silly, plates in hand.

For these.

And here’s how you make ’em:

Now: a note about my homemade maple syrup**. I KNOW that the best stuff is the real stuff, and we buy some of that real stuff every summer from folks who bring it to our market, and we eat it drop by drop until it’s gone. Then I make a batch of homemade stuff, and though it is just basically sugar and water and a few flavorings and some honey or molasses to give it a bit of thickness and body, it tastes great on pancakes and costs pennies per jar to make. Pennies. And very few of them, at that. So there: my homemade maple syrup mini-rant. If you’re opposed to the idea of syrup, you can put honey on your pancakes, or homemade jam, or crushed strawberries, or whatever is your favorite. But you knew that. It’s a free country and you can top your pancakes with whatever you choose!

I have written about a few more 5-minute breakfast recipes if you’d like to check them out:

Crispy Fried Eggs on Toast

Granola and Honey over Greek yogurt

Classy Charcuterie Tray

And here’s the list of all of them so far. Check them out!

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