In years past the local high school football team held a community breakfast as a fundraiser. In all honesty, the french toast served in large quantities was a bit lackluster, but the syrup—that was a whole different story. I remember showing up to our first football breakfast with 6 little kids in tow, long before my first son put on the pads and starting cracking helmets. We made our way to the front of the line and I handed each child their flimsy white paper plate loaded with french toast and filled with syrup. As hard as we tried to not drip too much syrup off the sides and onto the floor it was in vain. But it seemed we weren’t the only ones who had a hard time keeping the syrup on our plates, judging from how our feet kept sticking to the cafeteria floor as we walked along to find a table. Local restaurant owner Doc Magelby himself was kind enough to wander around to the tables and pour us a bit of extra syrup if we wanted it. We definitely wanted it.
Years passed and soon it was my own boys that were selling tickets to this fundraiser. Each year the plates were always flimsy, the floor was always sticky, and the syrup was always delicious. It wasn’t until I was down to my last football player that I thought I might like to add this recipe to my own archive. We use this recipe to add a little extra sweetness to breakfast while stirring up a few crisp fall football memories. What will your memories be?
** A few words of caution; don’t expect a clean floor when you are done and make sure you start with a LARGE pot. We will make the cinnamon swirl bread on Thursday!
- LARGE POT
- 6 tablespoons butter--not margarine
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ cup buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon corn syrup
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a large pot, melt butter over low heat.
- Add sugar, buttermilk, corn syrup, baking soda and salt and increase heat- bringing the mixture to a boil.
- Reduce heat as low as you can to keep the mixture at a low boil. This can vary depending on your pan and your stove top.
- Boil 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat and when the mixture has calmed down, add vanilla.
- Refrigerate unused syrup. It goes pretty thick in the fridge but warms up nicely in a pot or in the microwave.
If you choose to double this recipe, do yourself a big favor and use a very large pot because it foams up quite a bit while boiling.
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