How the heck long have I been doing this anyway? It doesn’t matter; the mad-kitchen scientist is back for another season of recipes to make your Buffalo Bills game days even more memorable.
For those of you new to this, it’s pretty simple. We love the Bills. We love food. Every week, you’ll get a themed recipe based on the Bills and their opponent.
I don’t usually write dissertations before recipes, but I’m gonna make you read a short story this time around as I explain the lore behind these pancakes.
Dawkins Pancakes w/ Bourbon-Pepper Syrup
Thank you to my incredible sister for taking me to the home opener this season, which marked the first meaningful game in the Buffalo Bills’ new home. What a day of memories it was, starting well before we even approached the stadium.
These pancakes have a story, and I hope I do it justice. If you’re the type of person who gets aggravated with recipes starting with really long narratives, this might not be your week…
My sister is the more social one of us and before we head in for the game we do the rounds at her favorite tailgate stops. And that’s how I ended up meeting Dion Dawkins’ mother aka “Mama Dawk.” Before I go any further you’ve hopefully come to trust my analysis over the years and you’ll believe me when I saw she’s an absolute gem. That applies to the whole family as far as I can tell, as there was another family member at that game I had the pleasure to talk to (more on that in a second) and yet more of the family at the Ravens game.
Now, shameless self-promoter that I am at times, I mentioned this series and asked what Dion Dawkins’ favorite food was so I could do a recipe. To my surprise, not only did Mama Dawk take the time to indulge me and thoroughly contemplate the question; she called over the other family member so we could really nail down the details. Now for an aside…
I try to take things seriously despite my (lousy) attempts at humor. I know who I spoke with and made sure to get their name. After meeting them, I wanted to make sure I treated things respectfully because; truth be told, while Dion and Mama Dawk have become deeply intertwined with the community I knew far less about the rest of the family. The last thing I would want is to toss someone into a spotlight who may not want it.
So this will have to be a “trust me bro” type of source. I didn’t find public mentions of this person so I won’t be the one to blow up any potential spot. If I get confirmation it’s OK to reveal the source, I’ll change that stance. But for now what I’ll stick to is that if you’re reading this; It was great to meet you, I can’t thank both you and your mother enough for taking the time to brainstorm this one.
Finally, I made a promise to send positive thoughts your way the following day as you had a bit of a big deal going on. I’m thinking you likely nailed it with or without my positive vibes, but I kept my promise as a small way to thank you.
Now for the rest of you reading this you’re here for pancakes, which I assume by now you figured out is what I was told is Dion’s favorite. I could have left it with that, but I wasn’t about to let the chance to dig deeper into things slip away.
Now I want to clarify a bit. While pancakes were noted to be Dion’s favorite, he was busy attending to the matter of playing against the Detroit Lions. I was enjoying the conversation with my unnamed source and well, I wasn’t about to walk away without some information on what they liked so I could steer the recipe. After all, there’s a ton of ways to make pancakes.
My big takeaways were that both sweet and savory flavors were good choices. I was told very directly that crispy edges were a preference. The bourbon-and-pepper infused syrup I made for these adds some savory/umami direction to the dish, but doesn’t hold back on the sweet. And you can bet these edges are crispy. The last decision I needed to make was what game to make these for.
Sorry for the wait on these, but I wasn’t about to forget the New Jersey connection. I appreciate everyone who took the time to read this and indulging the story. We’re all here for food, but once in a while the wall of words is necessary.
Dawkins Pancakes with Bourbon-Pepper Syrup
Makes: Enough for 4-5 people
Active time: 30 min
Total time: 2-3 hours
Ingredients
Bourbon-Pepper Syrup
2 serrano peppers
2 shots of bourbon
1 cup maple syrup
Pancakes
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 large eggs
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 cup water, divided as noted below
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
Extra butter for frying
Essentials: Shot glass, sauce pan, mixing bowls (one large, one medium), measuring cups and spoons, egg beater or whisk, rubber spatula, fry pan, ladle or large spoon, spatula
- Wash peppers and cut into small pieces (I made rings); removing seeds is optional.
- Immerse peppers in bourbon; cover and let them soak 1-2 hours.
- Strain pepper-infused bourbon into sauce pan; add 1 cup maple syrup.
- Bring to light simmer on LOW heat; cook off alcohol and reduce mixture back to syrup consistency, about 10 min.
- Preheat pan on stovetop to MED heat (on my stove I used between 5 and 6.5 out of 10, see below).
- Combine flour, salt, and baking powder in large mixing bowl.
- Beat (or whisk) together eggs, heavy cream, 1/2 cup maple syrup, melted butter and start with 1/2 cup water (see tips below on changing liquid amount and how that impacts cooking temp and time) in medium mixing bowl.
- Pour liquid mixture slowly into dry mixture while beating or whisking together; scrape sides of bowl and beat/whisk again.
- Place a small pat of butter in center of frying pan; allow to melt.
- Ladle pancake batter into center of pan (see below on tips for testing before committing to this step).
- When bubbles start to form through pancakes (about 3 min), flip and cook another 1-2 min.
- Repeat until you’re either out of batter or tired of making pancakes; whichever comes first.
- Enjoy!
Wingin’ It tips
I’ve learned this year through researching this and another recipe that capsaicin is alcohol soluble. What does that mean? It means soaking peppers in bourbon is a very fast way to get spicy bourbon. The first picture shows how big the peppers I used were so you have an idea of what I did. You could also do a hotter variant than serrano, but uh… maybe don’t.
On the second picture I show the leading edge of a pancake with bubbles around it. That’s the butter. If you drop the butter in the center then follow suit with the batter, the batter will naturally displace the butter to the edges and that’s how you get crispy edges. Incidentally, do you see that there’s a couple little lumps of dry ingredients in there still? Totally fine. They cook in without any issue. The last two pictures are just fun.
I promised “see below” several times and I can wrap all of them up in short order. One of the great things with pancakes is how easy it is to modify them to your liking. I started off this recipe with 1/2 cup of water and the batter was very thick. Now, that’s how I like them. These fluff right up and it’s like a cloud. That said, you need to cook them longer and at lower temperature that way. That was 5 on the stove for temperature and each pancake can take 7 or 8 minutes.
In the picture with the butter above, that’s with about a full cup of water added in. These spread out in the pan much easier. They cook faster, about 4 or 5 minutes per pancake. You can push the crispiness a bit further by turning the heat up. I was about 6.5 on the temperature doing that. Speaking of temperature, going too high will burn your butter and that’s no good. You can use other fats (like vegetable oil) that take higher heat before scorching and should still get crispy edges if you want to cut down on cooking time. For my two cents though, butter is where it’s at.
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