One new thing I have just started trying is making my own pancake syrup. I found the following recipe from Jonnie McCoy’s book: Miserly Moms Living Well on Less in a Tough Economy.
2 cups sugar
1 Cup water
1 tsp mapel extract (bought this at Meijer’s).
Bring the water and sugar to a slow boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat before it comes to a boil. Add the maple extract. Store in the refrigerator.
If you like it thicker, replace half the water with Karo syrup. I was a bit skeptical, but decided to give it a shot. It turned out just fine and I have been using it every since on our weekend waffles or pancakes. I prefer it a little thicker, but my husband likes the original recipe better, so I make it that way. I usually make hal this recipe and we use it all the day I make it. I asked the children what they thought of it and they said they did not notice a difference. There is a HUGE difference in expense.
Here is what Jonni Calculates:
Homemade 30 Cents
Store Bought $4.20
WOW!
My son *hates* maple… Do you think instead of maple extract, I could add strawberry or blueberry flavor? This is amazing, pricewise, and Ive considered trying my hand at making my own, but never got around to even looking for a recipe. I wish I knew a year ago how easy it was to make syrup! Thanks!!
One of the reasons people like to make their own pancake syrup is also because they are trying to avoid corn syrup in their diets, You can simmer the syrup a lot longer on the stove to get it to be thicker, although when it is stored in the fridge, it may crystallize a bit until you heat it up again for the next use. When people add corn syrup to this recipe, it greatly increases the price, at least where we live. Corn syrup is quite expensive here, so it would no longer be 30 cents per recipe.
Nice. I’m gonna do this one for sure.
I use a similar recipe for syrup that we like: 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup water, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring (Laura, maybe you could just leave this out and use 1 1/2 teasp. vanilla flavoring), and 1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring.
I never tasted bought syrup while I was growing up. My mom always made this homemade kind and w/6children she made alot of pancakes! She would soometimes substitie vanilla extract for the maple but I prefer the maple. If you make extra, store it in the ‘frigerator, in a glass jar, sit it in a pan of hot water to heat up or heat up in the microwave.