Frozen pancake roll-ups

Oh...so I guess I haven't posted in almost a month? Whoops. I've been working on a lot of Christmas projects and its taking longer than expected. I had my shopping done weeks ago, but craft projects really take a long time when you bite off more than you can chew (but I never learn my lesson, I have too much fun!)

One of the things on my to-do list was to make something for the missionaries in our ward. They sacrifice their personal lives for 2 years and work really long hours (doing a huge amount of service to the church and the community, without getting paid!). I tried to think back to what I would have wanted when I was a missionary, and the answer is always food (and/or toilet paper...stuff you hate to spend your money on). I don't know about the missionaries here, but we usually got cookies and candy (not that I'm one to complain about getting sweets). I tried to think of something (slightly) more practical that (might) last more than a day.

About 25 years ago my parents bought a case of these awesome pancake roll-up things. They were pancakes, filled with apple pie filling, and rolled up, then frozen. So, you just took out as many of them as you wanted for breakfast and put them in the microwave for a minute or so. For some reason, I started thinking about those delicious pancake roll-ups, so I decided to tackle making my own, and I plan to give several gallon freezer bags worth of these bad boys to the missionaries this week.

I broke this into two parts (to fit the nap schedule). This morning I made the fillings, and later I will make the pancakes. I decided to make both apple and blueberry, for variety. Here are the recipes I used:

APPLE:
2 apples (peeled, cored, and chopped)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup ClearJel* or cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Combine sugar and cinnamon with water in a large pot. Stir almost constantly while cooking on medium high heat until bubbly. Mix Clearjel (or cornstarch) with the lemon juice and add to the pot. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly, until beginning to thicken. Remove from heat.
(I didn't mix the clearjel and the lemon very well, so at this point, I had lumps, so I used a mixer to smooth it out)

BLUEBERRY
1/4 cup (plus 1 tablespoon) of Clearjel*
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup water
3 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
12 oz bag of frozen blueberries, defrosted (about $2.50 at Winco)

Mix Clearjel with sugar in a large pot. Add water and heat until beginning to thicken and bubble. Then add lemon juice. Stirring constantly, add blueberries and remove from heat.

*Clearjel is different from other projects with similar names that you find in the canning section at the store (like ClearGel), so don't use the wrong thing. This is a modified starch powder specially made for canning because it is supposed to break down better and not clump up. I don't know of any store that sells it, I bought mine online a few years ago and it has lasted a really long time. Make sure you have the Clearjel POWDER, otherwise just use cornstarch.

When I get the pancakes done, I will put about 1/3 cup filling in each one and roll up. Then freeze on a baking sheet and put into gallon freezer bags to store until I can get them to the missionaries. This project is less work and cost a lot less than I expected, since I already had the freezer bags and the ingredients for pancakes, etc and only needed to buy the blueberries and 2 apples.