Carrot Cake Pancakes

I highly recommend making these - and soon!  I love carrot cake and I love pancakes.  It's only natural that I married the two, they had a baby and that baby was a big, steaming pile of carrot cake pancakes!  That's not creepy sounding, is it?

I really don't have much to say about these other than they are really, really good.  They're not too sweet and because I used whole wheat pastry flour in place of whole wheat flour, these were light and fluffy.  They have to be good for your, right?  The pancakes have carrots, pineapple and whole wheat pastry flour.  That automatically makes them healthy!  :)

Because of the sweetness from the carrots and the pineapple, I used less sugar than I usually do in pancake recipes.  I also found I didn't need much syrup either.  In fact, I ate one plain while I cooked the rest of the pancakes and drizzled just a small amount of syrup on the other two I had.  Again, I recommend making these soon!

Carrot Cake Pancakes
Serves: 5 (3 pancakes per serving)

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated (about 1 cup)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup pineapple, finely diced (I used fresh but you can use canned - just make sure it's well drained)
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut (if you use sweetened, reduce amount of sugar)
1/4 cup loosely packed brown sugar
1 egg
Scant 1/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
Nonstick spray

Preheat skillet on medium.  Place carrots on paper towel to absorb any extra moisture.

Add ricotta, egg and sugar to a bowl and combine.  Stir in the carrots, pineapple and coconut.  Add the flour, cinnamon, powder, soda, salt and buttermilk.  Stir until just combined.  Don't over mix or you'll risk the pancakes being too tough.

Once the skillet is heated*, spray with nonstick spray.  Using a 1/4 cup measure, pour batter onto the skillet.  Cook for a few minutes until small bubbles appear.  Flip and cook another minute or two - Until the pancake springs back when you gently press on it.  Repeat until the batter is gone.  I got 15 pancakes from this recipe.

These would be great served with some maple cream cheese sauce (thin out some softened cream cheese with some milk and maple syrup).  But, as I previously said, these are great on their own or with a drizzle of maple syrup.  I bet these would be great with a schmear of peanut butter too!

* Tip to check if skillet is heated - Splash a small amount of water on the skillet.  The water should dance around.  If it does, it's ready for pancakes.  If not, heat a bit longer.