Photo isn’t too pretty, but I swear these were delicious!

It was one of those nights where I just felt like breakfast for dinner. And with a fridge stocked full of cute little bottles of pomegranate juice from Pom Wonderful, I decided to make some pancakes and slather them in pom syrup.Pom Wonderful actually sent me a free case of their pomegranate juice to “try out.” Now, before you go thinking I’m super special or anything….I did some research and found that I’m one of many, many, many bloggers who received free product from them….no surprise since the food blogging world provides a nice little free marketing scheme for food purveyors. But, alas….this was my first free product, and it made me feel special none the less since I was one of the hundreds of bloggers that Pom chose out of many thousands of bloggers….so I had to do something with the juice.

Truth be told, I had a very hard time coming up with something fun and unique to make with the juice. Pom has plenty of recipes on their website, but I wanted to be a little more creative. I flunked. Most pomegranate recipes call for pomegranate seeds (aka arils, the correct name for the crunchy, juicy bits). It’s hard to come up with recipes that allow the juice to shine through. The flavor can easily be masked by other, stronger flavors.

So, to make things easy, and to satisfy my hankering for breakfast for dinner, I boiled the pomegranate juice with some maple syrup and dumped it over buttermilk blueberry pancakes. No disappointment here. If I ever find myself with some pom juice in the fridge in the future, I’ll be eating pancakes, for sure. The pom syrup made my night.

Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes with Pom Syrup

(adapted from original recipe found here)
Ingredients
Pancakes:
1 cup all-purpose flour (about 4 1/2 ounces)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (1-ounce) package uncooked farina (i.e. Cream of Wheat)
1 1/4 cups skim milk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon butter dough emulsion (or just use vanilla extract)
1 large egg
1 cup fresh blueberries
Syrup:
1/2 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons pomegranate juice
2 teaspoons cornstarch
Preparation
1) To prepare pancakes, lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour and the next 6 ingredients (through farina) in a large bowl; stir with a whisk. Combine milk, vinegar, oil, emulsion/extract, and egg; add to flour mixture, stirring until smooth. Fold in blueberries.
2) Spoon 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto a hot nonstick griddle. Turn when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked.
3) To prepare syrup, combine 1/2 cup juice and syrup in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Combine 2 tablespoons juice and cornstarch in a bowl; add to pan. Cook 1 minute or until thickened; remove from heat. Serve with pancakes.