dessert for breakfast
Denny's dulce de leche pancakes perfect for breakfast or late-night
This week I reached out for a Dulce de Leche Pancake Breakfast at America's roadside 24/7 diner, Denny's, with 1,700 restaurants that present the finest in 3 am people watching. (We've all been there. On both sides of the watching.)
For you non-Spanish speakers, dulce de leche means "sweet (made) of milk." Slowly heat sweetened milk and it turns light brown, looking and tasting like thick, sticky caramel sauce. It's yummy, all right.
Here's the Dulce de Leche Pancake Breakfast breakdown: cinnamon crumb topping cooked inside two fluffy buttermilk pancakes, whipped topping, a small side pitcher of warm dulce de leche sauce, served with two eggs cooked to order, hash browns, and your choice of strips of bacon or sausage links. Whew! That's one heavy-duty breakfast load. Strap yourself in for the calories and carbs:
Total calories: 1,720. Fat grams: 75. Sodium: 2,896 mg. Carbs: 221 (!) g. Dietary fiber: 13 g. Protein: 44 g. Manufacturer's suggested retail price: $9.29.
Here we go again, Denny's blurring the line between breakfast and dessert; the cinnamon crumb topping is similar to the topping on a Drake's coffee cake. You may remember Mom sticking one of those in your school lunch bag.
You have to remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry was messing with another man's girlfriend and use a Drake's coffee cake to bribe Newman into keeping quiet.
Want to feel time slipping by? That Seinfeld episode first aired 26 years ago:
Denny's introduced a new recipe, lighter and fluffier, for its buttermilk pancakes in 2016. Dulce de Leche takes these pancakes over the top, with sweet goodies cooked inside, and super sweet sauce and whipped topping on top. The sweetness contrasts nicely with the salty caramel and buttermilk tang. The crunch of the cinnamon topping clashes with the smooth creamy sauce. It all has a happy ending in your mouth.
There's a whole lot of everything here: calories, flavor — and especially gross tonnage. It's a big boy breakfast, almost a whole's day worth of calories, etc.
And it's still only morning. Good luck the rest of day.