Christmas Pancakes with Candy Cane Chocolate Syrup

I've been craving pancakes. Pancakes are one of those breakfasts that seem to be a weekend/holiday treat and it's so nice to wake up to the smell of them being freshly made. I was probably a little spoiled as a child, since my Mum would regularly whip up her awesome banana pancakes, but these days I rarely have the time to make them myself. My pancake cravings were too much for me this weekend and I decided to make some festive Christmas-themed pancakes for our super-late Sunday breakfast.

I remembered seeing these awesome red & white pancakes from i am baker earlier this year and thought it would be great to do a twist on that idea to make it the perfect holiday breakfast. And so I ended up with these Red & White Christmas Pancakes with Candy Cane Chocolate Syrup. I love pancakes. I love candy canes. I also made a ton of crispy bacon to eat with it. I was a happy girl that morning.

Now I'm not quite talented enough in the pancake department to make them candy cane shaped like these amazing pancakes, but I do love the effect of the red and white stacks. I was quite impressed by how fluffy and white the ones from i am baker were, so I based my recipe on her plain pancake recipe, and then added a bit of red food colouring to a second batch of the pancake batter. It worked pretty much perfectly. Of course if you have issues with food colouring you could just leave it out, or use natural colouring. I used a gel colouring because you only need to add a little to get a great, vibrant colour. And if you're not squeamish about the colouring you could go even crazier and make a batch of green pancakes too.

The chocolate syrup is based on David Lebovitz's homemade chocolate syrup. If you have been reading my blog for long enough you will remember me waxing lyrical about this magical chocolate syrup. I renamed it Chocolate Awesomesauce and put it into oreo milkshakes. This time I modified it a little, by melting a bunch of crushed candy canes into it so that it had a nice hint of peppermint, and added some extra chocolate to make it a tad thicker since I figured most people would want something they could whip up and eat straight away for breakfast, rather than waiting a few hours for the sauce to thicken. The sauce is awesome but quite rich, I plan on making a second batch to pour over ice cream or mix into thickshakes. And of course I had to top off the whole thing with a bunch of extra crushed candy canes because it looks so pretty. But damn, peeling all that annoying plastic wrapping is a total pain in the bum. By the way, you're not a fan of the chocolate syrup you can always go with maple syrup and it will still be fantastic.

Red & White Christmas Pancakes with Candy Cane Chocolate Syrup
(Red & white pancakes adapted from this recipe from i am baker, chocolat syrup recipe adapted from David Lebovitz, makes 16 pancakes)
For the syrup:
1 cup (250 ml) water
1/2 cup (160 g) glucose (or light corn syrup, agave nectar)
Crushed candy canes, I used about 12 medium ones, about 150g
3/4 cup (75 g) unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-processed)
2.6 oz (75 g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used Lindt 70%), you can also use milk chocolate if you are worried about it being too rich
Extra crushed candy canes, to serve

For the pancakes:
3 cups (about 450g) plain flour
4 tbsp white sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 cups milk (I used skim)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 tsp vanilla extract
4 egg whites, whisked to soft peaks
Optional: red food colouring (I used gel colouring), green colour if you if feel like going crazy with it

Prepare the candy cane chocolate sauce first. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the water, crushed candy canes, glucose and cocoa powder. Bring to a boil over medium heat and simmer and stir until the candy canes are completely dissolved. You might want to taste test the sauce at this point to see if it in pepperminty enough for you. If you want it stronger, you can melt in more candy canes, or use a few drops of peppermint essence. Remove from heat and stir in the chopped chocolate until melted. Let the sauce stand until completely cool, which will give it time to thicken, or chill in the fridge. For the pancakes you can either measure up all the ingredients for the pancake batter in one go, split the batter in half and add the red colouring to one half, or you can measure half of all the ingredients first and cook them for the white pancakes, then measure up the other half of the ingredients and add red food colouring to that batch. I did the latter.

Place flour, sugar and baking powder in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Mix together milk, oil and vanilla in a medium separate bowl. Whisk egg whites to soft peaks. Pour wet ingredients into the well of the dry ingredients and whisk together until nearly combined. Add whisked egg whites (and red food colouring for half the batter if wanted) and fold into batter until just combined.

Place a griddle/frying pan on medium-low heat and lightly grease with extra vegetable oil. Pour about 1/3 of a cup of batter on to the pan and lightly brown on one side, until bubbles start to appear on the top then flip over and lightly brown the other side for about 3-5 mins or until cooked through.

Serve warm pancakes with chocolate syrup and sprinkle extra crushed candy canes on top (take care not to have pieces that are too sharp or too large for kids). A little bit of bacon is great with it too. Or if you want to skip the chocolate sauce, maple syrup and fruit is great too.