Lemon Blueberry Pancakes with Lemon Syrup

After a fairly mild winter, our town got hit with snow and frigid temperatures last weekend. When it's freezing and snowy outside, nothing is better than staying in and warming the place up by cooking! One of my favorite things to cook when we are stuck indoors is breakfast for dinner. We don't get up early enough during the week to cook a big meal, instant oatmeal is the extent of my early morning breakfast. On the weekends we have a few breakfast and brunch spots we visit, so we rarely take the time to cook breakfast then either. But since we were stuck in for the day, we decided to fix some of our favorites - blueberry pancakes, hash browns, and sausage. 

I get bored cooking the same meals over and over, so I enjoy experimenting some with our favorite recipes and meals. This is particularly true when I start with a box mix, I love adding fresh ingredients to the mix and changing the flavor profile. As I did with blueberry muffin mix last winter, I decided to spruce up a blueberry pancake mix with lemon juice and lemon zest. I didn't want to overpower the pancake flavor with lemon, so I didn't add too much zest or juice. Instead, I decided to amp up the lemon flavor by pairing the pancakes with a lemon syrup. The pancakes had a light lemon flavor on their own, but when combined with the syrup the flavor was fresh and delicious! 

Lemon Blueberry Pancake with Lemon Syrup ingredients:

• Blueberry pancake mix (10 pancakes)
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice
• Butter
• Lemon syrup:
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tbs cornstarch
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbs butter
• 1/2 tbs lemon zest
• 1 tbs lemon juice

Lemon Blueberry Pancake with Lemon Syrup instructions:

• Prepare your favorite blueberry pancake batter, we actually used a packaged pancake mix 
• Mix in lemon juice and lemon zest
• Heat 1/4 tbs butter in skillet on medium heat
• Pour just under 1/4 cup pancake batter in skillet (pour in multiple pancakes if there is room)
• Cook for around 1 minute 15 seconds
• Flip pancake and cook another few seconds
• Heat sugar, corn starch, and water in a pot on high heat
• When mixture reaches boiling, remove from heat
• Mix in butter, lemon zest, lemon juice until butter is melted
• Let syrup cool and pour into container