Pancakes Plain or with a Punch

By Nancy Finch, Food Columnist   

If children remember their mothers fondly for a favorite food, for one of my sons, it will be pancakes!

Every Saturday morning, the Finch family eats pancakes and has forever. Often Allen has called, although two hours away now, asked if the pancakes are ready and vicariously joined us � or sometimes he threatens to jump in the car and head home.

My recipe file box contains the tattered card that I no longer need to refer to, of course. The bacon drippings called for, alas, have been changed to vegetable oil. (They�re better with bacon drippings!) But, occasionally, I get really tired of that now ancient �Buttermilk Pancake� recipe and veer off into the unknown.

Those jaunts into experimentation are never well-received. They�ll eat them, but grumpily. The pumpkin pancakes, the banana pancakes

... all thumbs down from the voters at the Saturday breakfast table.

So, in all honesty, it was with �Apple Nut Pancakes.� �Where are our regular pancakes?� went the wail.

Trusting that some readers, like me, will actually enjoy Apple Nut Pancakes, they are pictured and the recipe is included. For the unadventurous in your family, the faithful Buttermilk Pancake recipe is here as well. No use to try sneaking some surprise in. Those pancake purists will catch you every time!

My pancake crowd also turns up their collective noses at a favorite pancake treatment of mine � sour cream with preserves and topped with fresh berries. Yum!

Syrup and butter. Syrup and butter. What a bunch of bores I feed!

Apple Nut Pancakes

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup skim or non-fat milk

3 T oil

1 cup cereal (flake-style such as grape nut flakes)

1 cup flour

2 t baking powder

1⁄2 t cinnamon

1⁄2 t salt

1 cup finely chopped cooking apple (1 apple)

1⁄4 cup chopped pecans

Sour cream

Pecan halves

Directions: In blender, combine eggs, milk and oil until well blended. Add cereal and set aside for about 5 to 10 minutes. Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt to blender. Combine on low speed just until ingredients are moistened. Stir in apples and pecans. Spoon about one-fourth cup pancake batter onto hot, lightly greased (or sprayed) skillet or griddle. Serve with sour cream and pecan halves or butter and syrup. Serves 4.

Finch Family Standard Buttermilk Pancakes

Ingredients:

2 cups buttermilk

2 eggs, beaten

2 T vegetable oil (or bacon drippings)

2 cups flour

1 t soda

1⁄2 t salt

2 T sugar (optional)