Pancake Bread Is What Your Breakfast Sandwiches Have Been Missing
Whether you make one yourself or order it from a restaurant, the contents of a breakfast sandwich don't vary much. They're typically made up of eggs, cheese, and either bacon, ham, or sausage (if you choose).
While they are tasty, a breakfast sandwich made with pancakes instead of bread can be time-consuming to prepare. Instead of just slicing and toasting the bread, you have to mix a batter, and for every sandwich you want to make, you have to cook a pair of pancakes with a similar size and shape, which can be challenging if you don't have a ring mold. Luckily there's a much simpler way to enjoy this type of breakfast sandwich. The key is to use pancake bread instead.
What is pancake bread?
Though you might assume it's just pancake batter baked into a loaf pan, pancake bread, while similar, is something else. Both are types of quick bread because they use baking soda, not yeast, to rise. Both also call for buttermilk and flour; however, the different ratios of the ingredients ultimately result in different textures. While pancakes are cakey, the texture of pancake bread is similar to that of a biscuit combined with a crumb cake, and it's usually topped with streusel. Additionally, instead of using maple syrup as a condiment as you do with pancakes, in pancake bread, the maple syrup is mixed directly into the batter.
Pancake bread works well for breakfast sandwiches for a similar reason pancakes do. In addition to maple syrup, the batter is flavored with sugar, vanilla, and sometimes cinnamon. This balances out the salty, savory flavors of your breakfast sandwich components. Because you can bake it in a loaf pan, it's more convenient than individually cooking a batch of pancakes, but it has a similar result in terms of taste.
How to make pancake bread
If you're making it entirely from scratch, because pancake bread is similar to pancakes, you can use pancake mix. Instead of following the instructions on the back of the box, you'll have to make a few tweaks. Instant pancake mix already contains flour, sugar, salt, baking powder or baking soda, and dehydrated buttermilk, so technically all you need to do is add water. Lifehacker suggests a ratio of ¾ cups of water for every 2 cups of instant pancake mix.
For a more homemade taste, you can also spruce up the pre-made mix with a bit of butter, maple extract, vanilla, and sugar, plus extra buttermilk and eggs. Then after baking it in a loaf pan, King Arthur Baking suggests you wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for an extra decadent flavor and texture. Once you use it for your breakfast sandwiches, you might never return to regular sandwich bread again.