Cheesecake Pancakes

I found this recipe years ago and am now copying it here from our family cookbook binder. Enjoy!

Cheesecake Pancakes

1 pkg. (8oz.) cream cheese                                  

2 cups Bisquick mix                                             

½ cup graham cracker crumbs                               

¼ cup sugar                                                            

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1 cup sliced fresh strawberries

1/2 cup strawberry syrup

Slice cream cheese lengthwise into four pieces.  Place on ungreased cookie sheet, cover and freeze 8 hours or overnight.  Brush griddle or skillet with vegetable oil, or spray with cooking spray; heat griddle to 375 degrees or heat skillet over medium heat.  Cut cream cheese into bite-sized pieces; set aside.  In large bowl, stir Bisquick mix, graham cracker crumbs, sugar, milk and eggs with wire whisk or fork until blended.  Stir in cream cheese.  For each pancake, pour slightly less than 1/3 cup batter onto hot griddle.  Cook until edges are dry.  Turn; cook other sides until golden brown.  In small bowl, mix strawberries with syrup; top pancakes with strawberry mixture.

*Note:  You freeze the cream cheese to make it easier to cut into small bites, but you can do it right out of the fridge too, it’s just messier.  Also, Scott and I found that instead of big chunks of unsweetened cream cheese in the middle of our pancakes, we enjoyed more leaving that cream cheese out and instead topping the pancakes with cheesecake flavored spreadable cream cheese from the tub instead.  No freezing or chopping required.  Lastly, instead of using strawberries with the syrup, we just sprinkled our fresh cut strawberries with some sugar, let sit until juices developed and topped our pancakes that way.  It saved us buying strawberry syrup that we didn’t want.