Sausage Pancakes

Remember those corndog-looking breakfast concoctions that you used to be able to get at school, the ones that weren't a corndog at all but a sausage linked wrapped in a pancake, fried on a stick?  I rarely ate school breakfast, but I'd kick myself when upon arriving at school I learned that those had been breakfast that day.  I remember getting to eat this much-desired breakfast item once in 6th grade during end-of-the-year testing when they served us breakfast between test sessions. 

This weekend, I had an epiphany.  Why not put the sausage inside the pancake as it cooks?  Everyone loves sausage and pancakes, especially when some of the warm maple syrup puddles underneath the sausage.  There's something about the marriage of the sticky sweetness with the spice of the meat that just screams "weekend breakfast".  Those flavors combined bring the promise of a slow morning and a day filled with possibilities.

Way to wax poetic over the sausage there, huh?

Annnywaaay... I used our regular whole wheat pancake recipe for this, but I really think a less dense version such as just plain old buttermilk pancakes would be better.  I put about 1/4 cup of the batter into my buttered cast iron skillet, and topped it with a couple spoonfuls of cooked crumbled sausage.

We had some great spicy sausage that we got from the farmer's market and it was so good up against the amber goodness of the maple syrup.  I'd love to show you a picture of a stack of these with melted butter and syrup dripping down the sides, but we inhaled these almost as fast as I could cook them. 

And that's the story of my life. 

I hope you'll try these one morning.  Or one night for supper.  Pancakes are good any old time.  This is just a fun way to mix them up.  And I'm sure if you're one of those people who hates sausage, you could do the same thing with bacon.  It just won't be the same.