Whole wheat pancakes –
Growing up my parents had a pretty leave-it-to-beaver division of roles. My father brought home the bacon and my mother cooked it. They were both pretty happy with that division, and it’s only been since his retirement that my father has started baking. But, like most rules there were exceptions – two in this case. When camping my father did all of the cooking, and when pancakes were on the weekend menu – well those were his too. He got pretty good at making pancakes.
Maple syrup from our own trees to complement whole wheat pancakes
Those pancakes were always made with plain old white flour and smothered in syrup – often pancake syrup rather than real maple syrup. Now, I’m not exactly up for the division of roles that suited both of my parents but, I still love pancakes and so do my kids. That said, in my home pancakes are made with freshly milled whole grain flour – usually whole wheat, and the syrup is real maple syrup.
I love how the richness of the whole wheat combines with sweet maple flavor. It’s interesting too, how four good sized pancakes with a drizzle of syrup forms a meal that satisfies for hours whereas it took a pile of white flour pancakes in a sea of syrup to fill me up at the table.
- 1 1/2 cups fresh whole wheat flour fine grind
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 3 tbsp oil or melted butter
- Mix dry ingredients in a bowl
- Into a depression in the center of the dry ingredients add the eggs, milk and oil and incorporate
- Add water if necessary to establish the desired consistency. The batter shouldn't be runny (we're not after crapes here), but should spread out fairly evenly when put on the hot griddle
- Put ladle-fulls on a hot griddle and cook - until the underside is browned. Ideally you should see bubbles breaking on the upperside of the pancake - but if your consistency is a bit thick this indicator won't happen so don't get wedded to looking for only that as a reason to flip and cook the other side.
- Enjoy with real maple syrup