Cream of Wheat Pancakes with Apple Pie Sauce

   

 

     The story of how these pancake were created is pretty funny.  You see, one night I decided to make apple crisp.  I chose a very popular, 5 star recipe that I had been eyeing for a while.  So I made it, tasted the batter (of course, and it tasted delicious), and put it in the oven.  My mom and I have this quote: "If the batter's good, you know the final product will be delicious too."  So i had no doubts that this apple crisp would turn out perfect.  It was a really easy recipe too..like most apple crisp recipes are.  So when the buzzer beeped at 1 hour-which is a pretty long time to be in the oven for-the mixture looked the exact same as when I had put it in.  It was just so runny and had no crisp to it whatsoever.  All of a sudden, it hit me: I forgot the flour.  I had a tantrum.  I was so frustrated because I had my hopes set so high for this delicious apple crisp, and I had gotten my parents excited too, and I felt like I had experienced the most embarrassing failure ever.  I mean come on, how could I have forgotten the FLOUR? It's in almost every recipe ever created...and I totally left it out.  Anyways..so right before I was about to dump the entire thing in the trash and start over, my dad stopped me.  He told me to taste it and keep it anyways, because throwing it away would be a complete waste.  I argued at first, but eventually I tasted it.  And it was really, really, really good.  It was so good, in fact, that I decided to use it as a sauce the next day in my oatmeal (I put EVERYTHING in oatmeal).  And it was very delicious.  We still had a ton of sauce left over, so I thought about some other things I could put it on.  And I thought: pancakes!!!  I have a favorite pancake recipe that I created which is very unique because it uses cream of wheat (the cream of wheat makes the pancakes super fluffy). So I decided to combine the 2 recipes into the ultimate, but slightly strange, pancake recipe.  The result?  Absolutely scrumptious(:  I was planning on entering this in the state fair, but I never got a chance.  I'm sure it would have won though.

Yield: 6 servings (about 12 pancakes)

For the apple mixture:

Ingredients:

·         5 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced

·         ½ cup white sugar

·         ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

·         1/4 cup water

·         ½  cup quick-cooking oats

·         ½  cup all-purpose flour

·         ½  cup packed brown sugar

·         1/8  teaspoon baking powder

·         1/8  teaspoon baking soda

·         ¼  cup butter, melted

Directions

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degree C).

2.       Combine all ingredients and pour in a 9x13 inch pan.

3.       Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 45 minutes.

4.       Stir before serving on top of pancakes.

For the pancakes:

Ingredients:

·         1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

·         1/3 cup instant cream of wheat

·         1/3 cup white sugar

·         1 teaspoon baking soda

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         1/2 teaspoon salt

·         1 1/4 cups milk

·         1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used greek)

·         1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

·         1 egg

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1.       Sift together the flour, cream of wheat, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl; set bowl aside. Whisk together the milk, yogurt, applesauce, egg, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and stir in the wet ingredients. Do not over mix the batter.

2.       Heat a large skillet over medium heat and lightly grease it. Pour 1/3 cup of batter onto the skillet at a time, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.  Serve with apple mixture on top.