Vegan chocolate almond pancakes with maraschino cherry syrup

Hello world! Damn it feels like ages since I’ve published a post (actually it has been a week and a day, but whatever). Not that it matters, but I’m usually pretty productive when it comes to whipping up my sugary concoctions and plastering them all over the internet.

Chalk it up to having a supremely shitty week. It’s been almost ten months since I wrote some words about depression after my breakdown of sorts, and still it feels like I’m going in circles. I guess there are some things drugs can’t fix.

Certainly not dreams. Been having those forever. You should’ve seen the feature film from last night, wherein I was watching some kind of horror movie and hallucinating and running through a block party all at the same time. Bizarre as hell. I was quite glad to wake up, actually.

But none of that matters, because guess what? It’s spring break! 

#partyhard source

And you know what that means, right? A lot of cake and internet in my near future. Which makes everything almost everything better.

Also pancakes. Plenty of opportunities to make pancakes. 

SO FLUFFY.

Now, I’ll assure you that I did not make these out of two week-old cherries; I actually made these pancakes shortly after the cherries themselves, but just didn’t get around to posting them. They were quite fresh, thank you very much.

These pancakes aren’t too chocolaty, lacking chocolate chips or anything like that (of course, you could certainly add them), but the maraschino cherry flavors shine right through. For the topping, I strained the cherries out of their syrup and reduced the syrup for about half an hour, turning it into this nice and thick pancake-friendly sauce. After letting it chill overnight, the syrup was much thicker, so I recommend doing that. 

Or, you know, just do what you want.

Either way, these are pretty terrific. I dunno. I like the combination of cherries, chocolate, and almond. It’s quite lovely. What can I say?

Here’s the recipe.

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Vegan chocolate almond pancakes with maraschino cherry syrup

Adapted from these chocolate peppermint pancakes

Makes one serving, plus extra syrup

Ingredients

1 recipe maraschino cherries, plus syrup

54 grams • all-purpose flour • ¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons

5 grams • cocoa powder • 1 tablespoon

4 grams • baking powder • 1 teaspoon

0.5 grams • salt • 1/8 teaspoon

15 grams • dark brown sugar • 1 tablespoon

78 grams • nondairy milk • ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon

40 grams • cooled maraschino cherry syrup (the thick, reduced syrup) • 2 tablespoons

2 grams • apple cider vinegar • ½ teaspoon

7 grams • vegetable oil • 1 ½ teaspoons

1 drop almond extract

12 grams • finely chopped almonds • 2 tablespoons

Directions

Drain syrup out of maraschino cherries and place syrup in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, then lower heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until slightly thickened. Let chill in a refrigerator—the syrup should thicken more as it cools.

To make the pancakes, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and dark brown sugar in a small bowl. Add milk, maraschino cherry syrup (see above), apple cider vinegar, vegetable oil, and almond extract and stir until just combined. Fold in almonds.

Fry pancakes on a well-preheated frying pan until bubbles form around the edges of the pancakes. Top with cherry syrup and more cherries.

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Ah yes, shiny little cherries.

Sorry for the short and depressing little blog post. Hopefully the tasty pancakes make up for it.

Aaaand here are today’s links.

Peppermint mocha pancakes. For those rebels who like lots of chocolate for breakfast.

Peanut butter cup caramel mocha pancakes. Perfect with a nice cup of ‘Murican mocha.

Maraschino cherry bread. Less like bread, more like cake.