Cooking with Food Storage: Gingerbread Pancakes with Caramel Sauce

This is one of my most favorite food storage breakfast (or dinner!) recipes.  We eat it often at my house. It is super simple to make and uses all shelf stable ingredients! I first read about this recipe on the blog, I Dare You To Eat It  a few years ago. This post is my interpretation of the recipe posted on that blog.

Here is the list of ingredients for the pancakes:

• 4 TBS powdered eggs (You could also use two large fresh eggs.)
• 2 cups whole wheat flour (I used Whole Wheat All Purpose Flour I made myself. You can see how to make Whole Wheat All Purpose Flour here.)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves (I use 1/8 tsp of ground cloves.)
• 2 to 3 cups apple juice (I can my own apple juice.)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil

 Start by mixing all the dry ingredients together. Mix well. Take extra care to eliminate the lumps from the powdered eggs. (You can sift the powder eggs to eliminate the lumps, but I didn't do that. I usually just break up any lumps I find with a spoon.)

 Then, in a separate bowl, mix the liquid ingredients. If using fresh eggs, add them to the liquid ingredients. Since I used powdered eggs, the only liquid ingredients I had were the oil and apple juice.  If you like thicker batter, use 2 cups of apple juice. If you like thinner batter, use 3 cups apple juice.  I used 3 cups apple juice. Whisk them together to combine.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and combine until well blended.

Pour onto a hot griddle. Cook on one side until the bubbles on the surface begin to pop and the batter turns from shiny to dull. (The shiny to dull part is important when using whole wheat flour.)

Turn over and cook until golden brown.

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Here are the ingredients for the Caramel sauce:

• 1/2 cup butter powder (Use 1/2 cup if using real butter as well.)
• 3 to 4 TBS buttermilk powder (You can also use real buttermilk. Use 3/4 cup.)
• Water to reconstitute the butter and/or buttermilk powder
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 TBS corn syrup
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp vanilla (I make my own vanilla. You can see how to make your own vanilla here.)

Place the first 5 ingredients in a very large sauce pan. Since I used both powdered butter and powdered buttermilk, this is best accomplished in two steps.  First, add all the dry ingredients to the sauce pan and mix.  If the butter powder is a bit lumpy, don't worry.  The lumps will come out as you cook it.

Then add the water for both the butter and buttermilk.  You could also reconstitute them before combining, but I don't bother. I add one cup of water. Then I add the corn syrup. Stir a bit and turn on the heat.  

Bring to a boil and cook for 6 to 7 minutes. The mixture will bubble up a lot. This is why it is important to use a very large saucepan   Here you can see a picture of mine coming right up to the top of the pan.

Stir continuously so it doesn't burn. As you stir and cook it, it will 'caramelize'.  (It really isn't a Caramel sauce - a better description would be 'Caramel like'.) When finished cooking, remove from heat and add the vanilla.

To make both the pancakes and sauce at the same time, I usually start with the sauce and when the sauce is done (and cooling), I make the pancakes. My experience is the sauce burns if you stop stirring for even a few seconds to flip the pancakes.  Here is the final product together.

These pancakes are so good you don't need to save them for breakfast in the wintertime.  We eat these throughout the year. My husband skips the Caramel sauce and adds butter and maple syrup to his.  They are really good that way too!

If I ever find myself without power because of a hurricane or bad storm, these pancakes are on the menu!