These are actually kind of healthy.

My pantry is in an embarrassing state of disrepair right now. I would guess I have 15-20 random bags of seeds, flours, and oats that I’m not really sure what to do with.

So anytime I make something baked I’m always trying to use up some of these random things.

The ironic thing about it is that the more I use them, the more I like them, so I just buy more when they run out. So the crazy pantry ends up growing instead of shrinking…

Champagne problems right?

Anyway, these pancakes are about as healthy as I’ll do on pancakes. They still have butter and syrup. It’s my view that if you aren’t willing to put butter in your pancakes, then you might as well not make them (unless you have some sort of dietary reason as to why you can’t have butter).

But these guys have a lot of good stuff in them also like chia seeds, flax seeds, and whole wheat flour. I was really happy with how they turned out.

Multigrain Pancakes

Yield: 8 medium pancakes

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Cup rolled oats
1/4 Cup ground flax seeds
1/4 Cup chia seeds
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
1 1/4 Cups milk
1/2 Cup buttermilk
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Quick Berry Topping:
2 Cups frozen berries
2 Tablespoons water
1/4 Cup sugar

Directions:

1) Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix wet ingredients (except butter) in a small bowl.

2) Stir wet stuff into dry stuff. Mix well and let sit for 15 minutes. If the batter is too thick, don't be afraid to add a bit more milk.

3) Right before making pancakes, stir in melted butter.

4) Cook pancakes over medium heat. Add a tiny amount of butter to the pan before starting pancakes. They should need to cook for about 2-3 minutes on the first side and then just a minute on side two.

5) Flip the pancakes when there are bubbles forming on the top and the sides are starting to dry up and become firm.

6) Serve pancakes right away with butter, syrup, and berry topping.

Making the Batter

There’s some pretty standard ingredients that almost any pancake recipe should have. You obviously need flour and some sort of leavening ingredient (baking powder/soda). Most will also have some dairy stuff for the liquids (buttermilk, milk, eggs, butter, etc). I think you could substitute these with soy products, but I’ve never really tried that.

The only substitutions that I made from the standard pancake ingredients is subbing some of the flour with whole wheat flour and also using brown sugar instead of normal sugar.

The normal stuff. Kind of.

What I did do though was add in some other delicious grains and seeds.

These guys give the pancakes a fantastic texture and an almost nutty flavor. I really liked them.

The fun stuff.

Pancake batter is pretty straightforward to mix. I’ve never really understood the advantage of boxed pancake mix. It maybe saves you 60 seconds and is way more expensive than just buying the individual ingredients.

Plus I just don’t think the resulting pancakes are as good!

To make the batter, just mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and the wet ingredients (except melted butter) in a smaller bowl.

Then just stir your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients.

Wet into dry always.

Since this batter has oats in it, I recommend letting it sit for about 15 minutes before making the pancakes. This will give the batter a chance to absorb some of the liquids.

After that point, you might need to add a few extra tablespoons of milk if your batter is too thick. It should almost be the consistency of a thick gravy.

Right before you start making your pancakes, stir in your melted butter.

Gotta have it.

Cooking the Pancakes

I think one thing that people mess up sometimes when they make pancakes is cranking the heat up to super-hot on their pan. While this works great for steaks, it’s not a good idea for pancakes. Nobody likes medium rare pancakes.

So start your heat on medium which will give your pancake time to cook through as it browns on the outside. Use a nonstick griddle or skillet to cook your pancakes in and add just a tiny amount of butter to the pan before ladling in the batter. You want just enough butter to lightly coat the pan.

People always want to know about how you can tell when to flip the pancake. The two things I look for are bubbles forming on the top and the edges turning solid and slightly dry.

This guy is about ready to go.

Almost there...

Flip with confidence!

Perfect!

If you cook your first pancake and it’s too thick, add a bit more milk to the batter to thin it out. If it’s really then, then your batter is too runny, so stir in a bit more flour.

A Quick Berry Topping

I usually just like butter and syrup on my pancakes, but I had some frozen fruit (my freezer is maybe in more disarray than my pantry) so I thought I’d make a quick berry topping.

I just added a few cups of fruit with some water and sugar to a pot. Bring this to a simmer and cook down the berries until they are thick.

Quick and easy.

Even with the fruit topping, I still couldn’t resist topping the cakes with some butter and syrup.

Hopefully you can see all the goodies that are in these guys.

Great texture and flavor for these.

I thought these turned out fantastic. They are very filling but still light and fluffy as a pancake should be.

Because of all the add-ins your getting a lot of your daily fiber requirements just with a pancake. That’s pretty hard to beat!

There's grains in those cakes!

Even though quinoa isn’t technically a grain, I’m learning that it shares one major trait of most grains: You can put it in almost anything.

Scones, muffins, smoothies… the list is pretty endless.

When I cook quinoa these days I just cook the whole bag of it (which is a lot) because I know I can use the leftovers in all kinds of fun stuff.

On this particular day, I made some pancakes that turned out really great so I thought I’d share them!

Quinoa Pancakes

Yield: 6-8 large pancakes

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 Cup cooked quinoa
1 ripe banana, mushed (opt.)
2 large eggs
1 Cup milk
1/2 Cup buttermilk
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions:

1) Cook quinoa according to instructions. Let cool a bit before using in pancakes. Using leftover quinoa is the best option.

2) Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

3) In a smaller bowl, mash banana until it's a paste. Stir in wet ingredients (milks and eggs) and quinoa.

4) Mix wet stuff into dry stuff and stir well to combine.

5) Finally, stir in melted butter.

6) Put a nonstick pan or griddle over medium heat and once hot, add a tiny pad of butter or spray with nonstick spray. Ladle on about 1/2 Cup of batter. Feel free to make them bigger or smaller. That's just a good starting size.

7) When bubbles form on top of the pancake and the edges firm up a bit, flip it!

8) Cook for a minute on the second side.

9) Serve immediately with syrup and butter.

The Quinoa

Ok. I’ll be completely honest. I’m not sure if I’d recommend making quinoa just for these pancakes. It’s not that they aren’t good, but I consider pancakes to be a quick breakfast. They really only take 10 minutes to whip together.

So adding 25 minutes onto that time just to add in some quinoa probably doesn’t make sense.

What I do recommend though is making a lot of quinoa, using some of it for a different quinoa dish, and saving a cup of the cooked stuff for these pancakes over the weekend!

If you’ve never made quinoa before, have no fear. If you can make rice or pasta, you can make quinoa.

I love this stuff.

Unless your quinoa specifically says that it’s pre-washed, I would always wash mine a bit. I typically do this in a strainer, but I’ve used a bowl in a pinch.

Once the quinoa is rinsed well, you can usually just follow the instructions on the package. Depending on the exact kind of quinoa you have, it might vary a bit. Normally, you want to add 1 Cup of quinoa to 2 cups of boiling water, then let it simmer, covered for about 20 minutes.

You should end up with a nice, light finished dish. It shouldn’t be mushy at all. You can use a fork to kind of fluff it up like you would with rice.

Leftover would work best.

The Batter

Besides the quinoa, this is a pretty standard buttermilk pancake recipe. You’ll need some dry stuff like flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

The wet stuff is also pretty standard.

Basic stuff. Not pictured: Banana

The only changes I made to a completely standard recipe besides the quinoa was to mush up a banana and add that to the batter. I also used brown sugar instead of normal sugar.

Both of these gave the pancakes a wonderful richness. I really recommend them, but the pancakes would be fine without them also.

To make the batter, stir together your dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mash up the banana and then add the liquid ingredients (milks and eggs). Finally stir in the quinoa. Add this liquid mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well to combine.

Finally, stir in your melted butter. My batter was perfect on try one, but pancake batter can always be a bit touch and go. Feel free to thin yours out with more milk if it looks too thick.

Chunky batter!

Cooking the pancakes

Every time I cook pancakes for someone, I get the same two questions: 1) How do you know when to flip and 2) How do you know when they’re done.

Now, of course, the timing depends on a huge number of variables including the pan you are using, the size of your pancakes, and the heat of your stove.

Assuming you have a good nonstick pan and your pan is over a medium heat, you’ll probably need about 3-4 minutes total to cook a pancake.

As far as when to flip, there’s a visual clue. Look for big bubbles to form on top of the pancake. The edges should also start to firm up a bit.

This guy, for example, is ready to flip!

Ready for a flip!

Flip with confidence people.

Non-confident flipping will end in a big mess.

Once the pancake is flipped it probably only needs a minute on the second side. It definitely needs less time than side one.

Boom!

Butter and syrup are obviously good on these guys.

I used a peach syrup that we had in our pantry that turned out to be very good.

Assuming that you cook the quinoa well, it gives the pancakes this awesome texture. It’s not crunchy, but it just feels more substantial somehow.

Solid breakfast.

If you really wanted to pack these full of quinoa flavor, they do make a quinoa flour as well that can be purchased at most natural foods stores. The problem is that it’s probably the most expensive flour that you’ll find. A single small bag of it will easily run you $10.

But using normal flour and stuffing it full of the cooked stuff ended up being a great pancake variation.

Give this a shot if you ever have some quinoa left over.

Two of my favorite things!

My Mother-in-Law was in town for a visit last weekend. Unlike the standard mother-in-law stereotype, we actually get along very well and I think we all had a great weekend. We did some hiking in Moab and around the Grand Junction area, took Porter for many walks, and most importantly, ate our faces off.

She’s a pretty serious Macheesmo reader so I thought she’d like to try something experimental that I was hoping would be good enough to post.

These pancakes fit the bill just fine. I’ve done a number of pancake recipes over the years, but these were up there on the list for me.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

Yield: 8 pancakes

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Cups all-purpose flour
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
1 1/4 Cups milk
1/4 Cup (half a stick) unsalted butter, melted (plus some for cooking)
2 Cups carrots, grated
1/4 Teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 Teaspoon ground cloves
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1) Peel and Grate carrots.

2) Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add spices and carrots and stir.

3) Mix in wet ingredients including melted butter in a separate bowl.

4) Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until a batter forms. A thinner batter will make for thinner pancakes. Thicker batter for thicker cakes.

5) Heat a griddle or skillet over medium heat and add a dab of butter.

6) Ladle out 1/3-1/2 Cup of batter per pancake.

7) Cook until bubbles form on the top of the cake, then flip, about 2-3 minutes per side.

8) Pancakes should be golden brown on both sides, but not soggy in the middle.

9) Serve with butter and maple syrup.

Making the Batter

I used my basic pancake batter for this recipe. The only real substitution I made to the recipe itself was to use brown sugar instead of regular sugar.

Standard pancake fare.

But, of course, I added in a few key ingredients to make this like carrot cake.

For starters, obviously, we need some carrots. I used three medium carrots that I peeled and grated. It worked out to almost exactly two cups of grated carrots.

Good for ya!

I also added a whole bunch of spices that are pretty common in carrot cakes.

You don’t want to overdo the spices though. I used a very small amount of each one, but they add a nice little flavor kick to the pancakes. I would say the only essential ones are vanilla, cinnamon and ginger. If you don’t have cloves or nutmeg, you can go without.

While there are whole cloves pictured below, you should use ground cloves obviously. Finding a whole clove in a pancake wouldn’t be fun.

Standard carrot cake stuff

I mixed up all my dry ingredients first, then added in my spices and carrots. Mix the wet ingredients separately and finally stirr them into the dry ingredients.

Pancake batter is a personal preference thing. The thicker the batter, the thicker the pancakes will be.

I like my batter relatively thin so the pancakes aren’t like 1/2 inch thick.

Feel free to go heavy on the carrots

Cooking the pancakes

When it comes to pancakes, always remember two things:

1) Do a test run. Then adjust the batter if you need to by adding more milk or more flour. Typically, I tend to make my batter too thick, then I’ll do a test and decide to thin it out a bit.

2) Assume you’ll mess up the first one. This recipe makes 8 pretty good sized pancakes, but count on 6-7 pancakes that are serve-able unless you are a pancake wizard.

When you’re ready to cook add some butter to a skillet or griddle and ladle out about 1/3-1/2 cup of batter for each cake.

When the cakes start to bubble on top, it’s time to flip!

On the griddle!

The cakes should be golden brown on both sides and cooked all the way through. I usually keep my heat on about medium for pancakes to avoid scorching them and it works out to about 2-3 minutes per side.

For some reason I was in a groove on this day (I usually perform best under pressure), so all my pancakes turned out really nicely.

They look like normal pancakes from a distance, but then if you take a bite you find…

Chomp!

Serve these guys with some butter and maple syrup and a few strips of bacon and you’ll have one good brunch on your hands.

This is the kind of brunch that can impress in-laws folks.

That’s gotta count for something!

Administrative Note: While I normally do new posts on Monday, I’m taking this Monday off for Memorial Day. If this upsets you, then you are spending too much time on the Internet! Get outside during the long weekend!

I substitute Greek yogurt for sour cream all of the time and sour cream pancakes are a pretty popular thing so I thought maybe I could use some yogurt instead. Worked like a charm!

Kind of tangy!

I think I make huge pancakes. This recipe says it makes 12 four inch ones. I just made what I consider to be a normal sized pancake and I only got four out of my batch, so maybe plan accordingly if you are trying to feed a crowd.

Greek Yogurt Pancakes

Yield: Serves 3-4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1 Cup Greek Yogurt
2 Large eggs
1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons milk
Butter for cooking
Maple syrup for munching

Directions:

1) Mix baking soda, flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Then stir in greek yogurt.

2) Add your liquid ingredients next and whisk the batter until it's smooth. If it ends up being too thick, add a bit mor emilk.

3) Add a small amount of butter to your pan or griddle over medium-high heat. Once it's melted add about 1/2 cup of the batter for each pancake.

4) When bubbles start to form on top and the edges get firm, it's time to flip. Generally, after about 3 minutes cooking on the first side, the pancakes should be ready to flip.

5) Flip pancakes and cook for another 1-2 minutes.

6) Serve as soon as possible with butter and maple syrup.

Adapted from Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes from Pioneer Woman Cooks.

Making the Batter

For pancakes, these are actually pretty healthy for you. Yogurt is way healthier than sour cream and this recipe is missing (although not to any noticeable effect) one thing that is almost always in pancakes: melted butter.

Basic pancake stuff plus yogurt.

To start, mix your baking soda, flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl and then add your Greek yogurt.

I was skeptical here.

Next add all your liquid ingredients and whisk away. It should be a pretty smooth batter, mine was a little thick so I added a few Tablespoons of milk (the milk in the above recipe wasn’t in the original).

There’s no need to let this batter rest, just go head and cook them right away.

Lookin' good.

Cooking the pancakes

The only butter in this recipe is used to cook. I guess you could use spray or something here, but there’s nothing like a pancake cooked in a bit of butter. It doesn’t take a lot to get the job done. Just a teaspoon or two will melt nicely in your pan and give great flavor to the pancakes.

Melt the butter on a griddle or in a pan over medium-high heat and once it’s melted and bubbling, pour your batter in. I make about 1/2 Cup pancakes but you could make smaller ones obviously. I’m not sure if I would make them much larger just because they’ll be hard to flip.

Perfect sizzle.

I’m not going to lie, pancakes are kind of tricky to cook. Ideally, you want to flip them when they are starting to get large bubbles on the top and are starting to firm up around the edges, but you also want to make sure not to burn the bottoms at all. It’s kind of a tricky thing. My advice is that if you aren’t too comfortable making pancakes, double or triple the batter recipe so you have some wiggle room.

In general, a few minutes per side should get you some good results.

These will puff up a bit.

Of course, you want to eat these as soon as possible after they come off the griddle. Just add a small pat of butter and some syrup. I’m a strong believer that if you are taking the time to make pancakes from scratch, it’s worth the extra bucks to use some real maple syrup to take them to the next level.

Gotta use real syrup.

I actually loved these pancakes because they weren’t too sweet. The yogurt gives them a bit of a tangy flavor that I really enjoyed. It’s almost kind of a sweet/savory thing.

Also, the yogurt gives the pancakes a great texture.

Good stuff.

I will definitely be making these again. They are really simple if you can get the pancake cooking down and they sure did hit the spot for me.

I reaffirmed two things when I made these sourdough pancakes.

1. I really, really like good pancakes and sourdough pancakes are maybe as good as it gets.

2. Blueberries make good pancakes into excellent pancakes.

Umm... Yea.

I made my sourdough loaf on day 2 of my barm and it wasn’t all that sour. I made these pancakes on day 4 and the flavor was definitely better. They had a really nice sourness that wasn’t overpowering at all. When you added the fruity blueberries and the sweetness of the syrup, they were really close to perfect.

Blueberry Sourdough Pancakes

Yield: 10 large pancakes.

Prep Time: 15 minutes + making starter

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Pancake Starter:
1 Cup Barm
1.5 Cups water
2.5 Cups flour (I used 1.5 Cups All-purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour)

Final Batter:
1 egg
2/3 Cup milk
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons melted butter (original recipe uses vegetable oil)

Blueberries (Optional. Kind of.)
Maple Syrup (These guys deserve the good stuff.)
Whipped cream?
Strawberries?
Powdered Sugar?

Helpful Equipment:
Nonstick Griddle

Directions:

1) The night before serving pancakes, combine barm, flour, and water in a large container. Make sure it’s at least twice as large as your starter because it will grow. Stir everything together.

2) The morning of pancakes, add final batter ingredients to a bowl and whisk them all together!

3) Add the really runny mixture to your pancake starter from the night before. Fold it together until you have a batter.

4) Get out your favorite griddle and melt some butter on it.

5) When butter is melted and griddle is very hot, add 1/2 Cup of batter. That makes a pretty big pancake. Feel free to go for 1/3 of a cup for smaller or 2/3 of a cup if you like the pancake to hang off the plate.

6) As soon as the batter is poured on the griddle pup 10 -15 blueberries down on the pancake.

7) Assuming the griddle is hot, you should be able to flip the pancake after about 3-4 minutes. When you see lots of large bubbles popping up and the edges are starting to turn up, that’s when you know it is time.

8) Move the pancakes straight to a plate and add some butter if you want. A good drizzle of maple syrup is essential! Serve immediately.

Adapted from the Joy the Baker recipe.

Making the starter

As with everything sourdough, these guys take some time. I think in reality you probably only need to let this starter sit for a few hours before making the pancakes, nobody wants to wake up at 4AM and make it so that it’s ready when you need it.

So just do it the night before and thank me later. Basically, combine your barm, flour, and water in a large container. Make sure it’s at least twice as large as your starter because it will grow.

Basically a starter.

It will be wetter than bread dough, but not a batter exactly yet. Just stir everything together. This took me maybe 3 minutes the night before I wanted to make my pancakes.

Making the final batter

Add your final batter ingredients to a bowl and whisk them all together!

Basic ingredients.

Then add the really runny stuff to your pancake starter from the night before. Fold it together until you have a batter. It should be the consistency of thick gravy.

All together now.

Cooking the pancakes

To cook these pancakes, get out your favorite griddle and melt some butter on it. It’s important to use butter. Why? Because it’s breakfast dammit. I don’t condone any of that low-fat spray business.

When your butter is melted and your griddle is very hot, add 1/2 Cup of batter. That makes a pretty big pancake. Feel free to go for 1/3 of a cup for smaller or 2/3 of a cup if you like the pancake to hang off the plate.

As soon as your batter is poured on the griddle plop a few blueberries down on your pancake. I find that 10-15 is usually a good amount. Don’t get lazy and add your blueberries to the batter before you cook your pancake. That will result in Blueberry Clumpage which is my #1 pancake pet peeve.

Ready to flip!

Assuming your griddle is hot, you should be able to flip the pancake after about 3-4 minutes. When you see lots of large bubbles popping up and the edges are starting to turn up, that’s when you know it is time.

And remember: Flip with confidence!

Move your pancakes straight to a plate and add some butter if you want. A good drizzle of maple syrup is essential!

I ate all of them. Oh yes I did.

I’ve made some good pancakes over the last year and while the Cherry Chocolate Pancakes were maybe more inventive than these guys, I think I liked these more. That may be because I don’t have a huge sweet tooth and these were almost savory while the chocolate ones were pretty sweet.

Now, it’s worth nothing that the total prep time for these pancakes was close to two weeks if you add up the time it took to make the starter, the barm, and the pancake batter.

Nevermind all of that! They are good! They might not warrant making a starter on their own, but if you were on the fence about trying a sourdough starter, the idea that you can have these basically anytime after you have the barm made should be a pretty large push.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a garden so I can’t actually grow gargantuan zucchini, but it’s still one of my favorite veggies and it’s very economical and fresh this time of year.

What’s cool about these zucchini pancakes is that they are pretty flexible. I served these for brunch, but you could just as easily have them as an appetizer. No matter when you eat them, zucchini pancakes are great!

Simple breakfast.

This recipe is pretty flexible and you can throw in all kinds of extras based on what you have around. I just used a potato to give the pancakes a bit more of a hash brown kind of texture, but you could add in all kinds of other things: carrots, turnips, parsnips, beets, celery root, sweet potato, ginger and garlic (for a slightly more Asian flavor). That’s just for starters.

Zucchini Pancakes

Yield: 6-8 pancakes

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

2 pounds zucchini (about two medium sized), grated
1 potato, grated
1/2 onion, grated
1/3 Cup all-purpose flour or bread crumbs (I used flour)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 Cup Parmesan cheese, grated
4 Tablespoons oil or butter (I used olive oil), for frying
Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1) Grate veggies (zucchini, potato, onion).

2) Lay zucchini and potato on a few paper towels and lightly pressed some of the water out of them.

3) Mix everything together except the oil.

4) Heat up oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Make sure oil is hot by dropping a lone shred of zucchini in. It should sizzle like crazy.

5) Form each pancake and carefully lay it in the oil using a spatula.

6) Cook approximately five minutes a side. They should be a deep golden brown color.

7) Move straight to a paper towel to pull off some of the excess oil.

8) Sprinkle a pinch of salt and pepper on right away while they are very hot.

9) Serve with fresh fruit and a good dollop of Greek yogurt.

Adapted from How to Cook Everything.

All the veggies you'll need.

Prepping the veggies

Basically all of the veggies for this recipe have to be grated. This isn’t really as much work as you would think. I grated two zucchinis, a potato, and 1/2 an onion in about 2 minutes. You could dice the onion if that’s easier.

The one thing you will note is that both the zucchini and potatoes will release a ton of water. You want to pull out as much of this as possible before mixing your batter because a really watery batter isn’t great.

I laid out my zucchini and potato on a few paper towels and lightly pressed some of the water out of them. You don’t have to be crazy about it, but try to get off a fair amount of the surface liquid.

Lots of water in this stuff.

Once you’ve dried off your veggies a bit, you can mix everything together except the oil. There won’t be a lot of batter really. It’s mainly just to hold the pancakes together. The veggies are definitely the star of the show here.

If you pick up a ball of the batter it should kind of stick together.

Batter?

Cooking the pancakes

I should note that Mr. Bittman recommends that you form these guys and then let them chill for an hour to firm up. I was simply too hungry to deal with that, so I just formed them and then dropped them straight into the hot oil. Seemed to work just fine.

I like my pancakes to be about 1/2 Cup of batter so I only got about 6 out of the recipe. You could go a bit smaller though if you wanted.

Heat up your oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Make sure your oil is hot by dropping a lone shred of zucchini in. It should sizzle like crazy. If your oil isn’t really hot you’ll end up with zucchini soggy-cakes. Nobody likes soggy-cakes so test your oil and make sure it’s hot.

Then form each pancake and carefully lay it in the oil. Use a spatula if you aren’t comfortable sticking your hands very, very close to extremely hot oil. Maybe use a spatula even if for some reason you are comfortable with that idea.

Frying these guys up.

Cooking time may vary on these guys but will probably be around five minutes a side. They should be a deep golden brown color. When they are cooked, move them straight to a paper towel to pull off some of the excess oil.

As with anything savory I fry, I sprinkled a pinch of salt and pepper on right away while they are very hot.

Straight to the paper towel.

I serve these for breakfast with some fresh fruit and a good dollop of Greek yogurt. Traditionally, I think sour cream is the choice topping, but I’m on a serious Greek yogurt kick these days.

Some fruit is a good side.

So, if you have a few pounds of extra zucchini laying around, this is a good way to work them into your breakfast. I thought about taking this whole dish one step further and topping the pancakes with a poached egg and making kind of a zucchini benedict dish, but I was out of eggs! I bet it would’ve been good though.

Anyway, the point is that this is a really flexible recipe that allows for all kinds of fun summer and fall veggies.

Leave a comment if you have other ideas for these guys.

One of my absolute favorite flavors of ice cream is the Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. I mean that stuff is like crack to me. Except I don’t think I could ever OD. I think I could eat it until my stomach exploded a la Se7en. If you don’t know what Cherry Garcia is it is basically vanilla ice cream with large chunks of dried cherries and chocolate.

Last weekend I was scrounging for something for breakfast and realized that I had all of the necessary ingredients to make pancakes. I also happened to have some cherries and some chocolate laying around, so I thought I would try making a pancake that tasted like my favorite ice cream.

These guys were rich.

My idea was a good one! These pancakes were moist and fluffy and had large chunks of cherry and melted chocolate throughout. They were super-rich, but they were delicious. Turns out pancakes are not one of my magic foods. In fact, I only made it through about 1/2 of this dish before calling it quits. They were that rich.

Before we even get to the pancakes though, let’s discuss something that I think is essential to pancake heaven: fresh whipped cream. Everybody always seems impressed by it, but it isn’t that hard. This is the basic formula I use:

Whipped Cream

- 1 Cup whipping cream
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 Teaspoon vanilla

There is also this fear that it takes forever to make. In fact, once you get the hang of it, it takes no time at all. In fact, I think it is faster with a normal whisk than with an electric mixer.

So, I timed myself. Under a minute flat.

I rule.

If you aren’t willing to spend one minute to make heaven in a bowl, then to you, Sir/Madam, I bid good day.

There are a lot of different pancake recipes out there, but this is the recipe I’ve used the last few times I’ve made pancakes and loved it.

Buttermilk Pancakes (Adapted from Simply Recipes)
Serves 3-4 easily

- 2 Cups all-purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 Teaspoon salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 Cup buttermilk
- 1 cup milk
- 3 Tablespoons melted butter

Also, you will want:
- 20 (apprx.) cherries, pitted and quartered
- 4-6 ounces milk chocolate, crumbled or just buy chocolate chips. You could use dark chocolate also I think.

Helpful Equipment:
- Nonstick Griddle

This recipe is great, but I had a quandary. I didn’t have any buttermilk and the corner store was out. So I did some research and read that you can approximate buttermilk by adding a few Tablespoons of lemon juice to a cup of milk and letting it sit for 10 minutes.

Buttermilk?

Note I say approximate, but this doesn’t actually make buttermilk. I tried it and it only sort of worked. It just tasted like milk with lemon juice in it. It didn’t have that signature tang that actual buttermilk has.

Anyway, combine all your dry ingredients in a bowl and then whisk in your wet ingredients which you should mix together separately.

Perfect consistency.

I also let my pancake batter rest for 10-15 minutes in the fridge to let some of the flour absorb the moisture a bit. You could make them right away though if you were in a rush or something.

For me, this gave me time to prep my cherries:

Quartered and pitted.

And my chocolate:

Chocolate chips would work better.

You want everything ready when you start making these guys.

Before you start cooking the real deal, I always like to do a pancake test. Heat up some butter or oil in your pan or on your griddle over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add a few Tablespoons of batter and cook a small pancake. The batter should spread out evenly. If it stays in one spot, your batter is too thick and you need to add more milk. If it runs all over your pan, it is too thin and you need to whisk in some more flour.

Once you are happy with the batter, it’s time to make the real deal. I like to use a bit of butter to cook my pancakes, but you could use oil also. Just use a little bit to lube the pan up.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to pancakes with stuff. First, is to mix all the things into the batter and then pour the batter onto the griddle. This works fine as long as you remember to stir your batter before each pancake because the goods will sink to the bottom.

I prefer to pour my pancake, and then after it has been cooking for 2 minutes (it will start to set up), then I sprinkle in my ingredients. This allows for an even distribution of awesome.

Nice.

There are two sure-fire ways to know when you need to flip your pancake. First, you will start to see good sized bubbles forming on the surface of your batter. This means that the center of your pancake is pretty much cooked. Second, the edges around your pancake will start to firm up and you’ll be able to easily maneuver a spatula under it.

Then the flip!

Just a minute or two now.

Now, the second side doesn’t need as long to cook. The first side will need probably 4-5 minutes and the second side will only need one or two minutes. Keep a close eye on it! It will burn quickly.

In fact, if I were to make this again (and I will because it was delicious), I think I would try mixing the chocolate chips into the batter before baking. The way I did it worked okay, but I had to keep a close eye on the pancakes after the flip because when I flipped them, the chocolate came into instant contact with the hot griddle and they would burn pretty quickly. I lost one pancake soldier due to this…

I think if I mixed in the chocolate before, it would maybe not be so bad because there would be a small layer of batter between the chocolate and the hot pan. The cherries worked great though and you can sprinkle those right on top to assure even distribution.

Oh man these were good.

These are kind of a surprise because from the top you can’t notice any cherry or chocolate. All of the goodness is on the underside or inside.

Then you cut them open and BAM:

A good bite.

I was totally going to call these Cherry Garcia pancakes but I was afraid that the Ben & Jerry’s lawyers would be knocking on my door. What? You don’t think hippies have lawyers?! They most certainly do.

Regardless of what you call them though, these pancakes were everything I hoped they would be. Top with a little whipped cream and syrup and you are in heaven.

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Creamy and yummy

Thursday’s are sort of my lazy days around here, so rather than reposting a step-by-step guide to these beauties, I’ll just leave you with the recipe: Buttermilk Pancakes. Two quick notes about this recipe: First, use 3/4 cup milk, not 1/2 a cup. Also, my photo kicks their photo in the ribs.

The next part of this recipe is homemade whipped cream and it really sets the whole thing over the top. Again, the recipe. It is really not that hard to make your own whipped cream and it is actually cheaper and better for you than cool whip. Cool whip is so uncool.

Make these this weekend. That is all.