Tenda-Bake Quick & Easy Chai Tea Valentine Pancakes with Orange Maple Syrup

I’m a big fan of making things from scratch. But I’ll also be the first to admit that I am willing to cheat when it comes down to ease and time constraints, especially if the cheat offers a great quality result with homemade taste.

Take these pancakes, for example.

Tenda-Bake is a pancake mix owned by the Midstate Mills company, a family run business in my nearby North Carolina. If I can support a local business, I will, and Midstate Mills supports others as well. Tenda-Bake mixes are very tasty, and easy to use. Nice! For an easy and flavorful way to change things up, just make the mix using cooled Chai Tea instead of water. The idea was posted on the Midstate Mills site, and I decided I had to try it. Delicious!

I also wanted to take it a step farther, so I took some Pure Maple Syrup and added some orange juice and zest and cooked it down for a few minutes, making a very flavorful and fresh syrup to top the Chai Pancakes. Did you notice they are PINK? Of course they are! I added a little red food coloring to make them Valentine ready. Aren’t they cute?

So there you have it! Quick, easy, and the taste of gourmet with very little effort! Even the OLD me could have pulled this pancake off!

Now, if you’ll scoot over to the Midstate Mills Facebook Fan Page and sign on (leave a note on their wall saying I sent ya, will you?), there is a place under the Offers Tab to register to win prizes everyday this month! One winner per day, I’m told, and you only have to register once! I’ve seen a few Doughmesstic readers announced as winners already – so why not you? Plus, if you’ll do that then come back HERE and leave me a comment, you can win HERE as well! One Doughmesstic commenter will win this…

~Free Tenda-Bake® “The Essence of Southern Baking” electronic cookbook ($9.95 value) featuring sixty one unique, southern recipes your family will be sure to enjoy, plus a pancake mix to try yourself!

*Disclaimer – Though they are one of my sponsors at the upcoming BlogHer Food conference, I was not paid by Midstate Mills for this review/giveaway. All opinions are my own.