I purchased Fiori di Sicilia (“flowers of Sicily”) at a time when I was making bread daily. I had visions of veganizing Panettone one day. Then life threw me a curve ball and making bread daily just wasn’t something I wanted to do.
Lately, I’ve been getting that old feeling again, the desire to play with dough. And somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that little bottle of Fiori di Sicilia. This weekend I felt like making pancakes and thought the citrus extract would be a nice change of pace.
I used the recipe I usually use from seitan beats your meat (online pancake recipe). I substituted the Fiori di Sicilia for the vanilla extract, using only half of what it called for (ie. 1 tsp vanilla extract –> 1/2 tsp Fiori di Sicilia).
While making the pancake batter, I had that moment when you hesitate, you know just before you put in a new-to-you ingredient you think to yourself, “will I ruin this whole batch with this one ingredient?” I smelled the Fiori di Sicilia one last time, and decided that I would go for it. I tasted the batter and it was good with just a hint of citrus… I then had my taste-tester taste the batter and he agreed that it was good. Whew! 
While the pancakes were cooking the smell reminded me of shortbread cookies. But the actual taste of the pancakes, topped with maple syrup, reminded my taste-tester of orange sweet rolls and I had to agree. These were awesome, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I ate half of that stack. 
Oh and that electric skillet, that my in-laws gave me years ago, is the best thing for pancakes. I could make 6 pancakes at once!
YUM!
Now to find more recipes to incorporate the Fiori di Sicilia into. Any ideas?
Until next time…
~nic
