Active Life Cooking

Perfect Pumpkin Pancakes:

Two Ways to Please Any Picky Pumpkin Pancake Eater

I’ve been promising friends for quite some time to post my “perfect pancake” recipe that I’ve been using week in and week out for the past 6 months and the day has finally arrived (with added seasonal flare)! Bill, this is for you, my “tried and true” pancake recipe that has been pleasing my tummy for months, step by step in pictorial form. These pancakes are healthy, tasty, and reheats like a dream as leftovers! With a seasonal twist of pumpkin, these can’t be beat for healthy eating for the fall…

I love, love, love pancakes! It took me a number of attempts (see strawberry lemon pancakes, berry buckwheat pancakes, and most recently peanut butter and jelly pancakes, or just check out my other breakfast posts) to perfect my base pancake recipe, but now that I have perfected it, it’s all I ever make for my weekday breakfasts. I’ll give it to you two ways, thick dense pancakes and lighter pancakes to satisfy any pancake lovers craving.

Enough with blabbing, I know you all came here for the goods!

The recipe…

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Whole Wheat Flour (I find that the 100% whole wheat flour actually gives a more flavorful pancake than white whole wheat)
• 1 cup Oat Flour (or alternatively old fashioned oats pulsed in food processor until reaching flour consistency)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp good quality cinnamon
• 1.5 cups Skim Milk + dash lemon juice (to make buttermilk, alternatively, use buttermilk) for thinner/lighter pancakes increase to 2 cups Milk
• 0.75 cup Pumpkin Puree (I used home roasted, canned would obviously be easier); for non-pumpkin version, substitute with 0.5 cup Greek Yogurt
• 1 tbsp Honey
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 egg whites

Before you start, put your milk, lemon juice, pumpkin puree (or yogurt), honey, and vanilla extract into a measuring cup and stir to combine. Set aside so the solid pumpkin can assimilate with the milk.

Preheat your griddle (or pan) to approximately 350F.

Now put all of the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and whisk together until combined.

After your major wet and dry ingredients are taken care of, crack two eggs and reserve the egg whites into a small bowl. Whisk the egg whites until frothy on top (see below).

Pour wet ingredients (except egg whites) over dry ingredients and combine, be careful to not overmix, lumps are ok (note this is the thick version, thin batter will be shown later)!

Then pour egg white on top and fold into pancake batter.

Below is a picture of the final consistency of my thick batter.

By now your skillet should be pre-heated. Grease up your skillet (either with a tad bit of butter or non-stick spray) and drop batter on by the scant 1/4 cup full (slightly less than 1/4 cup).

Batter will spread a little bit and then will rise and approximately double in bulk. You’ll see the edges starting to stiffen up and a few bubbles pop on the edges. They are about ready to flip!

For the more adventuresome, you can cook 6 all at once (and take pictures of it…I multi-task…)!

Once the bubbles start popping on the edges of the thick pancakes, they are ready to flip.

A nice golden brown on this batch! You’ll also notice that they rise a bit more just post-flipping. Keep a close eye on the pancakes. After flipping, they will only need about 30s to 1 min before taking off the griddle. I normally gently tap the top to see if they are fully set or not. A keen ear can also listen for bubbles popping in each individual pancake. I haven’t mastered that technique, yet…

Now for the thin version!

Basically, use the same basic formula, just add more milk until you get the consistency seen below…

That may be the consistency most people are used to making. I prefer them thicker, but it’s a matter of preference. The base recipe is what matters most in my recipe!

The thin batter tends to yield more bubble poppage, due to less flour for the bubbles to get through…

Again, this is about the time you’ll want to carefully (with confidence, if that makes sense) flip your pancakes!

There you have it!

Perfect Pumpkin Pancakes, two ways to satisfy any picky pumpkin pancake eater! Try saying that one 5 times fast…

Recipe makes 20 pancakes using a scant 1/4 scoop.

Nutrition (each pancake):

• 53 cal
• 1 g fat
• 10 g carb
• 2 g fiber
• 2 g protein

To reheat these pancakes, place on microwave-save dish or paper towel (I use paper towels at work) and heat for 20 seconds. Check for warmness and nuke for another 30 seconds. Enjoy everyday!

Hope you enjoy and if you are a first time visitor, welcome! I appreciate comments, questions, and suggestions. Also, I encourage you to not only check out my tasty recipes, but also learn a little more about my efforts with Team in Training!

Stay tuned for more recipes and my training update later this week

Also…just realized this was my 100th post! Woohoo! I didn’t expect to get this far, given my track record on keeping written diaries (hrm…how many 2 week diaries do I have floating around???)…