Pancakes Four Ways

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Our first admission here is that we are neither well-versed-in nor in-love-with whole-wheat-cooking.  We like our white flour pasta and muffins and other such things, but we do acknowledge all the benefits of whole wheat.  Thus, we have decided to make a concerted effort to do some whole-wheat experimenting.

We thought we’d ease in nice and easy.  We dipped our toes in with this pancake recipe and the water wasn’t as cold as we expected.

This recipe is another one a la Violet.  As we said before, Violet is all about the healthy eating and this is the recipe she picked for a summer-morning breakfast.  She suggested adding the cinnamon and nutmeg which made all the difference and then we added the other whole-wheat mediators.

We doubled the recipe.  Why?  We don’t know.  It was way too much.  The amounts below reflect our doubling.  Make it this way if you are serving brunch for eight friends, or perhaps a small army.  On the up side for us, now we have pancakes for at least a week, and we think they are great — unless you forget to cover them when you reheat them in the oven as we did when we made them for a friend. He said he’d been craving pancakes all week and we thought this would be a perfect opportunity to share, albeit leftover pancakes. But they got a little dried out and he will probably have to have them done right to get the craving out of his system. Sorry, man.  Next time we’ll make ’em for you fresh.

 

Whole Wheat (ish) Pancakes Four Ways

(Based on this recipe from Epicurious)

(Doubled below and serves 8-10)

 

For the base:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 cups white flour

6 tbsp sugar

8 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 nutmeg

4 cups whole milk

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick)

 

The additions:

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1 cup chocolate chips

AND

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16 oz. Strawberries chopped into small chunks

AND

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2 bananas sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

AND

we made some plain.  Simple and delicious.

 

Pre-heat the oven to 300˚ ESPECIALLY if you are going to make the doubled version**.

First, mix together the dry ingredients (the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg) in a large bowl.  Then in a medium bowl mix together the wet ingredients (milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla).  Slowly incorporate the wet into the dry.

Prep any (or all) of the other options.  We recommend all three, but also note that even the plain ones and pretty damn delicious on their own.  We ladled the batter onto the frying pan and added the chocolate chips, strawberry chunks, and bananas as the first side cooked.

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When they are firm enough to flip, do it.  Cut in some butter every few batches to keep the pancakes from sticking.  **We kept the pancakes on a baking sheet covered with aluminum foil in the preheated oven to keep them hot (and moist) as we fried away.

These pancakes have piqued our curiosity about whole-wheat eating, and we expect that we will keep our eyes peeled for other ways to appreciate this new world.  Regardless, we hope that you can all enjoy a few of these pancakes.  Thanks, Violet.