Honey Bourbon infused Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

*All photographs were taken by my friend Michelle. See more of her beautiful work at http://michellekmartin.tumblr.com/ *

I recently watched an episode of “Throwdown” on The Food Network that featured blueberry pancakes. It left me with a crazy hankering for some pancakes; instead of the classic blueberry I thought it would be nice to incorporate some of the remaining apples from our harvest this autumn.

We have a few different apples varieties left (Macs, Empires, and Golden Delicious) and all are delicious candidates for the apple portion of these Honey Bourbon Infused Apple Cinnamon Pancakes. I once had an apple crisp that was infused with bourbon, and I was amazed at how well the flavors of apple and bourbon meld together. At the package store I was lucky to find bourbon that was infused with honey (yum!). In this recipe I used the bourbon as a bit of a flavor and also a way to keep my apples from oxidizing and turning that icky brown color.

Some tip for delicious pancakes:

1. Don’t over-mix. Beating the batter until there aren’t any lumps will develop the gluten in the flour and make for a gummy texture to your pancakes.

2. Use a mixture of regular milk and buttermilk.

3. Let batter rest for about 15 minutes before cooking pancakes.

4. Separate eggs and beat the whites into stiff peaks before incorporating into the batter. This will create a fluffier batter and make for tender and light pancakes.

Honey Bourbon infused Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

2 cups flour

1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 ½ cups buttermilk

1 cup milk

2 large eggs (separated)

Cream of tartar

4 Tbsp butter (melted)

3 medium sized apples (cored and sliced thin)

Honey infused bourbon

Core, peel, and slice apples. Add apple slices to a shallow bowl and pour a generous amount of bourbon over, set aside. Place flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl and whisk together. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add in both kinds of milk, egg yolks, and melted butter. Whisk all these ingredients together, but do not over-mix, having some small lumps in the batter is ok. Let the batter rest for about 15 minutes. Preheat an electric griddle to 350 degrees. Put the egg whites and a few pinches of cream of tartar in an electric mixer with a whisk attachment and beat on high until still peaks form, 1-2 minutes. Gently fold egg whites into the rested pancake batter. Grease the griddle with some butter or vegetable oil, and spoon on a desired amount of batter, add apple slices once the pancake is poured. Flip pancakes when small bubbles form on the surface of the batter. With these pancakes, flipping once is desired.

Note: if you prefer thinner or thicker pancakes you can adjust the amount of milk added to the batter.