These “Cap’n Drunk Pancakes” with a malted milk glaze from The Culinary Bro-Down cookbook are great hangover breakfast food. Crushed cereal is whizzed up with flour, then mixed with your standard pancake ingredients—plus a full can of beer. The malty, fluffy cakes are topped with a funky-sweet malted milk glaze instead of syrup. Per the book intro, “You can add cereal crumbs to cookie dough or cake batter, or basically any batter or dough that doesn’t rely on gluten development like donuts or pizza do. I suggest you do it, and after you eat these pancakes, you’ll see why.” Check out Cheeseburger Pudding and Ramelette recipes from Josh Scherer if his madcap style intrigues you, and get ready for a truly unique experience.

For more gussied-up pancakes, get our Spiced Pumpkin-Pecan Pancakes recipe, or our Carrot Cake Pancakes recipe.

WHAT TO BUY

Malted Milk Powder

Malted milk powder imparts a slightly earthy, roasty taste and a bit of creaminess, traditionally to shakes and soda fountain drinks, but you can add it to all sort of baked goods, icings, and frostings for an extra dimension of flavor.

  • Yield: 8 pancakes
  • Difficulty: Easy
  • Total: 40 min
  • Active: 40 min

Ingredients (13)

For the pancakes:

  • 4 cups nondescriptly flavored golden square breakfast cereal whose mascot holds military rank
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 can light beer
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted, plus more for cooking the pancakes

For the glaze:

  • 2 tablespoons whole milk
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 tablespoons malted milk powder (if you can’t find malt powder, use powdered milk; it will at least give you an extra dose of funk in there)

Instructions

For the pancakes:

  1. Put the breakfast cereal and flour in a food processor or blender and let it run on high until the cereal is properly dusted up. (Or empty it into a large Ziploc bag and bash it repeatedly with a blunt object—like a can of beans or a brick.) Empty that into a large mixing bowl and add the baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  2. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the beer, milk, egg, and melted butter and whisk together.
  3. Slowly pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and whisk together.
  4. Heat about a teaspoon of butter in a large nonstick sauté pan over medium heat. Or one of those big electric griddles… Man, I should get one of those. They seem useful. But where would I even put it, you know?
  5. When the butter is fully melted, pour in about a ½ cup of your pancake batter and swirl the pan a little bit so the batter disperses evenly. Fit as many pancakes as you can into the pan without the edges touching. Or you can go one at a time and spend all day at the stove. Either way.
  6. When bubbles start to form on top of the pancake (or when you smell it burning, I don’t know), after about 3 minutes, flip the pancake and cook for another 2 on the other side, until the batter is cooked through and there’s some good browning on the outsides. Repeat until all the batter is used. To keep the pancakes warm until serving, wrap them together in tin foil. It will insulate the heat and get some good steam action going which will keep them tender and moist.

For the glaze:

  1. Heat a small saucepot on medium-low heat, and add the milk and butter. When the butter melts, whisk in the powdered sugar and malt powder. Whisk over the heat for 15 seconds then turn off the heat.
  2. Stack those cakes at least three high on a plate, pour a bunch of glaze over the top, then garnish with some extra crushed up breakfast cereal that for sure doesn’t rhyme with “Faptain Brunch.”

Excerpted from the book THE CULINARY BRO-DOWN COOKBOOK by Josh Scherer. Copyright © 2017 by Josh Scherer. Photograph by Andrea D’Agosto. Reprinted with permission of Grand Central Life & Style. All rights reserved.