I made pancakes! Stonewall Kitchen Gingerbread Pancake and Waffle Mix

In response to Graham’s frequent request for pancakes, I recently picked up a can of Stonewall Kitchen’s Gingerbread Pancake and Waffle Mix. With Graham as my guinea pig, I figured I could mangle of few batches of pancakes before Christmas when Santa will be kind enough to bestow upon me an ebelskiver. Filled pancake goodness will be mine! (Let’s be honest, if we’re lucky I’ll probably only use it twice.)

Williams-Sonoma Ebelskiver Pan: Rumor has it Santa's got one in his bag of treats for me.

I could have picked up plain ‘ole pancake mix for these pre-Christmas trials, but I figured what with it being the holidays and all, we could go ahead and splurge on the gingerbread stuff since we love gingerbread so very much. Not that this mix costs any more for the gingerbread variety versus the 10 other flavors it comes in including another love of mine – pumpkin. At the last moment, I debated placing the can back on it’s lovely end-cap home there with the good folks of Central Market, mindful of the dreary economy and ever vigilant about my budget. But I didn’t. At a price of only $6.00 at Central Market, we’ll only need to add one additional night of soup for dinner to afford it.

In general, I find these prepared mixes have the tendency to be a little bland and/or cook up to an odd consistency. There’s a particular brand of muffin/coffee cake mixes that invariably leaves a sugar water by-product that coats the bottom of my pans. It’s a sticky, icky mess and, after one too many of these culinary disasters, I stopped buying the manufacturer’s mixes altogether.

Other prepared mixes just leave you thinking, “is that all?!” because all the flavor is lost in the time that passes between the product’s original “born on” date and when it’s actually made it to your taste buds. Special added bonus: preservative after-taste.

Stonewall Kitchen Gingerbread Pancake and Waffle Mix - The product description says: The aroma and flavor of this spiced pancake and waffle mix make it the ideal choice for holiday breakfasts. Topped with our Cinnamon Apple Syrup they are incredible.

Not so on either count for this Stonewall Kitchen mix. The instructions were clear and the added ingredients – milk, an egg, and a tablespoon of butter – are all readily available in most kitchens. The batter smelled nice, but belied the lovely flavor that awaited us.

But let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves.

Once I’d added my ingredients, I carefully stirred together the mixture, paying particular attention to the Achilles heal of pancake making: batter’s final consistency. Again, no troubles. In fact, the only thing that could have gone wrong was for me to massacre a perfectly good breakfast with poor pancake making technique. Et voila!

Lovely, mostly round!, very nicely constituted pancakes.

The best was yet to come: flavorful gingerbread goodness dominated neither by ginger nor molasses. The word gentle comes to mind, though it may mislead one to believe that the pancakes are weak, which they are decidedly are not.

Stonewall Kitchen Maine Maple Syrup

My only misstep, perhaps, was in not choosing Stonewall’s Holiday Syrup to go along with the gingerbread goodness. Stonewall Kitchen has this to say of it:

The delightful blend of cranberries, raspberries and pears makes our Holiday Jam a top selling preserve year after year. This luscious syrup was made to compliment this incredible flavor blend. The color, flavor and smooth rich texture of this syrup make it ideal for the holidays.

The Holiday Syrup would have paired quite nicely with the gingerbread flavor, though I’m not convinced it would have been as extensible as good ‘ole maple syrup is.

On Christmas morning, should Santa decided I was indeed a good girl as we expect (or a bit naughty, but still pretty nice), Graham shall once again enjoy gingerbread pancakes cooked anew in my prized ebelskiver.

Goods by Stonewall Kitchen also available at amazon.com:

• Stonewall Kitchen Gingerbread Pancake &Waffle Mix 16 oz.
• Stonewall Kitchen Gingerbread Pancake & Waffle Mix and Maine Maple Syrup Barn Gift Set
• Stonewall Kitchen Christmas Traditions Breakfast Sampler Collection: Holiday Jam, Pancake Mix, 2 Coffees & Maine Maple Syrup Jug

Let’s just exhaust this whole gingerbread subject by visiting these other fun! exciting! links:

• Gingerbread Barn (by me)
• Awesome Gingerbread Houses (but no barns) (Neatorama)
• Gingerbread Man Cookies (on sticks!) Recipe (101 Cookbooks)
• The Tradition of Gingerbread (my merry christmas)