Pancakes Made Your Way
Last night I had a big supper planned but when I went in the kitchen the water wouldn’t work. We called the water department and they had shut it off to work on the lines. By the time the water came back on it was too late to cook what I had planned, so I had to come up with a different plan. I don’t know about you, but we love pancakes. We usually have them at least once a month, sometimes more often especially in the summer when we are home more and trying to avoid heating up the house with the oven. Pancakes for supper are one of our favorite meals when we need something easy and quick. They are pretty inexpensive too, add some sausage or bacon and boom, you have a meal. I usually keep complete pancake mix in the cabinet so we can have them whenever we want them. Since the mix is complete all you have to add is water, this makes it great option to take on vacation too. I have tried lots of different brands and I prefer the Great Value Complete Extra Fluffy Pancake and Waffle Mix. You can use any brand you prefer or make your own pancakes from scratch.
Even though we like the pancakes plain with syrup, sometimes we like to dress them up. I use a folding griddle when I make my pancakes. It keeps the temperature steady so the pancakes don’t burn. This is pretty important since I have to make a lot of pancakes to feed my family. The griddle allows me to make 4 at a time, instead of 1 like I do in a skillet. My husband’s favorite pancake is easy, I just pour the pancakes on the griddle as normal, then sprinkle chocolate chips over them. As the pancakes cook, they rise and surround the chips.
When they are ready, I then flip them over and cook the other side. I don’t add the chocolate chips in the batter because 1) I don’t like them 2) they don’t pour out evenly so you end up with clumps of chips in some of the pancakes instead of evenly sprinkled 3) everyone can have the kind they want with no extra trouble. I have used different colors of chocolate chips during holidays, such as red and green during Christmas or flavors, such as pumpkin spice for my pumpkin loving son.
One year I used chocolate chips to make pancake snowmen for my kids when they were out of school for Christmas break. My son teased my daughter and made her cry so she wouldn’t finish eating hers, but they really liked them and he ended eating them both.
You could also use the chips to make designs or letters in the pancakes, such as Mickey ears or each child’s initial.
My favorite pancakes are strawberry. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I love strawberries! I love them almost any way I have tried and I have tried them a LOT of ways. I used to add crushed strawberries to my syrup and heat it up to create a strawberry flavored syrup. It was hard to judge how much syrup we would use and I hate to waste food, especially strawberries. So now I just chop the fresh strawberries up in little pieces and place on my finished pancakes. If there are any strawberries leftover they can be used in another meal or snack later. I tried cooking them in the pancakes like I do the chocolate chips, but I didn’t like that as well. I just place a spoonful of strawberries on each pancake and top with syrup as normal. They are so good. You could do this with any fruit that you like or a mixture of different fruits, you could even add nuts or whipped cream.
My son is very into healthy eating. He doesn’t drink sodas, exercises constantly and watches what he eats most of the time. He will eat regular pancakes occasionally but sometimes he wants to make his healthier. When I get done making our pancakes, he likes to add a scoop or two of protein powder to the remaining batter.
He usually buys chocolate protein powder, so it makes the pancakes have a chocolate flavor. He dips the the protein pancakes in milk instead of using syrup and has used honey instead of syrup before. Tonight he had an extra pancake so my daughter tried it and she liked eating it plain, kind of like a flat chocolate muffin.
We like to heat our syrup, while my husband wants his at room temperature. Everyone has different likes and dislikes, so this makes it easy to please everyone and you don’t get tired of eating the same thing all the time. The flavors and combinations are unlimited when you use your imagination. Start with a basic batter and add in the ingredients and toppings that you like. Since you are adding to plain pancakes, then you don’t have to worry about having a lot leftover if you don’t care for it since you can just make one to try. That is how we have found some of our favorite recipes, through trial and error. So let your imagination run wild and see what you come up with.
Leave a comment below and let me know how you like your pancakes.
Some other breakfast recipes you might like to try are Crescent Roll Danishes and Sweet Rice.
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