More About Healthy Oat Pancakes

Back in this post I discussed my tweaking of Chocolate Covered Katie’s recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pancakes. This recipe and variations of it have become my most common breakfast over the last several months, so it’s time to sum up my experiments and share with the world (or at least all six of you who read this blog regularly).

First I’ll give you the base recipe with optional mix-ins and substitutions, then the variants that have worked quite well, and then I’ll give mention to some failed experiments so those of you interested in such potential variants can explore further on your own.

Healthy Oat Panckaes – Base Recipe

Dry Ingredients (can be mixed ahead of time and stored at room temperature)

2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup quick oats
1/4 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp Splenda for baking

Wet Ingredients (add just before cooking)

2 eggs
1 cup milk

Other

Butter for frying

Method

Mix all the dry. Add the wet and mix thoroughly. Lightly grease the pan with the butter (very lightly, I like to reserve a stick for this purpose and simply rub the stick directly on the pan for a thin coat between each pancake). Spoon in some batter at the size desired. Flip when the edges start to show signs of bubbles. Be careful not to overcook or they’ll turn out dry and chewy.

Optional mix-ins (add to dry before adding liquid)

1 tbsp whey protein
1 tbsp ground flax
1/3-1 cup chocolate chips (minis work best)
1/3-2/3 chopped nuts/seeds of your choice (I like walnuts, sunflower seeds have also worked well)
1/2 cup of blueberries or more (frozen or fresh, but frozen will make the whole batter purple)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice

1 tsp vanilla (add during liquid phase)

Ingredient Substitutions

Variants

Chocolate/Blueberry/Nut

Base Recipe, plus about 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips, 2/3 cup chopped walnuts, and a couple of handfuls of blueberries. This is my favourite combination and the one I make most often.

Warm and Spicy

Base Recipe, plus a random dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. This is tasty and makes the kitchen smell nice, but not as filling or flavour-rich as the one above.

Banana Nut

Base Recipe except omit milk, add 5-6 ripe mashed bananas and 2/3 cup walnuts. Very tasty with good amount of banana taste, although they do come out fairly wet/soft compared to the regular recipe, even omitting the milk entirely. But when I’ve tried with less banana, the flavour hasn’t been strong enough to be noticed. Be sure to spread the batter thin and cook over lower heat so the insides cook more.

Variants That Didn’t Work

Zucchini in various proportions just makes them come out wet and soggy. Not pleasant at all. I’ll leave zucchini to muffins instead, where it works out much better.

Cut up bits of dried apple rings should have tasted great in the Warm and Spicy version, but even with a pile of them, they pretty much disappeared into the mix and couldn’t be detected when eating.

Conclusion

This recipe is so readily adaptable that everyone ought to be able to find a way to make it suit their tastes. My “bad” cholesterol levels have gone down since I started eating this regularly for breakfast, and I feel fuller for longer during my day, with improved energy. I highly recommend giving it a go!

UPDATE! I’ve now made these as muffins too!