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.

Happy National Pancake Month!

When I found out February is National Pancake Month I got really excited - Maybe a little too excited!  But I don't care.  I LOVE PANCAKES!  :)

To celebrate, I hope to either try a new pancake recipe each weekend for the next month or create new recipes.  When I thought of recipes I'd like to try, I immediately thought of the whole wheat chocolate chip sweet potato pancakes I saw on Eat, Live, Run.  I mean, they're super healthy because they have whole wheat flour, dark chocolate and sweet potatoes, right?  Well, maybe not super healthy, but definitely healthier than pancakes made with all white flour and oil.  These pancakes have the perfect amount of sweetness too.  They only have 1T of brown sugar and a ton of chocolate chips so they're just sweet enough.

I would definitely make these again and if you wanted to make them even healthier you could use all whole wheat (pastry) flour.  I can't wait until next week to try a new recipe - I'm thinking carrot cake pancakes?

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Sweet Potato Pancakes


1/2 large sweet potato, baked then mashed with a fork (I used just shy of 3/4 of a cup of canned pumpkin puree and increased the flour by 2T to account for this)

1/2 cup white flour

1/2 cup + 2T whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 cup milk

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/2 cup (heaping) dark chocolate chips

Butter (or nonstick spray) to grease skillet

Maple syrup for serving

Grease a large skillet with butter and head over medium high heat (I used nonstick spray).

Combine all ingredients, mixing JUST UNTIL COMBINED and drop by quarter cups onto hot skillet. Cook for about two minutes each side then serve with warm maple syrup.