Buttermilk Apple Pancakes with an Apple Toffee Balsamic Maple Syrup

 I've been needing some comfort lately, specifically because the show I work on's first season is ending soon and I will be unemployed funemployed (got to stay positive, right?....right.) in a few days. This is normal for the industry I work in, and *hopefully* I will be working on a pilot in a few weeks, I just have to be patient and see what comes. But for someone like myself who is at best a planner, and at worst a compulsive scheduler, the thought of just not having a job and not knowing when the next one will come or what it will be sends me into a bit of a panic. And by a bit of a panic I of course mean that my amygdala sends pure adrenaline and terror coursing through my veins.

This is a screen cap of my personal calendar; not even my work one, mind you. I like to think of it as my rainbow of assuredness.

But I had a good stress cry about it last weekend with Jeremy that served the twofold purpose of 1) really helping me release my anxiety and 2) cleaning his shirt with my excessively salty tears (salt has antiseptic qualities! I learned this while researching how to clean my cast iron skillet.) And on the bright side, this (hopefully) brief period of unemployment will give me more time to garden, cook, hike, and focus on some projects I've been wanting to start for a while now but just never had the time for.

So yeah. I just wanted something tasty that would make me feel all nice and cozy inside, and breakfast really does that for me (head's up: there will probably be a lot of breakfast posts in the coming weeks), so I made apple pancakes. I used this buttermilk pancake recipe as the base but added some applesauce and cinnamon and then made an apple toffee maple syrup with a splash of apple pie white balsamic. And guys, it was prettttty amazing.

The pancakes were light and fluffy but still rich from the buttermilk and with a hint of apple. The apple toffee maple syrup was sweet, thick, cinnamon-filled, and had the most pleasant tinge of balsamic. I probably could have eaten only these pancakes for days on end and been totally okay with that happening. But there were only enough to last me and Jeremy one day, and then they were gone.

Soul crushing.

But they were easy enough to make, so I'm just going to whip them up again this weekend. And maybe a bit more often than that since I'll have the time on my hands ;)

Click Here For Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

Buttermilk Apple Pancakes

3 Eggs

3 Cups Buttermilk

3 Cups Flour

1/2 Cup Apple Sauce

1/3 Cup Butter, melted

1/4 Cup Milk

3 Tablespoons Sugar

3 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 and 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Soda 

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon 

3/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg 

Apple Toffee Maple Syrup

1 Apple, peeled, cored, and cut into eights

1 Cup Maple Syrup

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup Heavy Cream

3 Tablespoons Devo Apple Pie White Balsamic
1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon

First, make the syrup. Mix together the maple syrup, brown sugar, cream, cinnamon, and white balsamic in a frying pan over medium heat and bring to a boil. Add the apple slices to the pan in a single layer so that they do not overlap. Lower the heat to medium-low and continue cooking for about 20-30 minutes until the apples begin to look sightly translucent, flipping the apple slices about halfway through cooking. Feel free to shake the pan back and forth a bit every 5 minutes or so to mix up the juices, and scrape along the bottom of the pan with a flat-bottomed wooden spoon to keep any of the sugar from hardening to the bottom of the pan. When it is done, set it aside to cool and thicken and bit while you make the pancakes.

To make the pancakes, mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and set them aside. Then mix together the wet ingredients in a separate medium-sized bowl until well blended. Heat a lightly greased griddle over a medium-high heat, when you flick a drop of water onto it and it sizzles and evaporates you know that the griddle is ready for pancake-making. Stir together the dry and wet mixtures until just blended. Scoop about 1/2 cup onto the griddle for each pancake.  Cook until golden brown on each side, about 3-5 minutes.

Serve immediately with the apple toffee maple syrup.