Whole Wheat Pancakes

I've been moving us away from packaged goods and more towards whole grains and no preservatives. That means I've been cooking from scratch a whole lot. I discovered a whole wheat pancake recipe that was pretty good but, as usual, I made some changes to suit my family's tastes. Below I'm going to include 2 versions, the one to make for the whole family as well as a version that creates a dry mix in case you want to do some of the prep work ahead of time.

To make 6 large pancakes:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 4 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 large eggs (or use flax seed)
• 2 cups + 2 Tbsp milk*
• 2 tsp vanilla

*This mix is really good with vanilla almond milk but you'll have to dial up the quantity a bit since it is so thick.

Mix all the ingredients together. Pour into a pan heated over medium heat. If you're not using a non-stick pan, it would behoove you to use a little cooking spray first. When the pancake begins to look dry on the sides, it's time to flip it. Cook both sides and serve hot, preferably with organic maple syrup. Yum!!

Now, as promised, the other version is for making up your own mix so that you just have to add the egg (or flax seed), milk and vanilla and you'll have pancakes fast. I did a little rounding on the amounts to make the measurements easier to do but they still come out great.

To make a batch that will ultimately make around 24 pancakes over time:

• 8 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup baking powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 Tbsp cinnamon
• 3 Tbsp sugar

Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl:

Mix them together really well with a whisk.

Now load your mix into an airtight container and when you want pancakes, use the following proportions:

• 1 cup mix
• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla

This will make 3 large pancakes.

As a thank you to my brother and his family for inviting us to stay with them while we were in St. Louis a few weeks ago, I'm sending them a box of this mix. I made these pancakes for them while I was there and my nieces loved them. I used a photo I took at the end of our trip of the two of them with the Snickerdoodle and am calling it "Three Cousins Pancake Mix." I covered a cereal box with some cream colored scrapbooking paper then added the photo as well as instructions on the back and Mod Podged the whole thing to make it last.

I'll drop it in the mail along with some of my homemade blackberry jam. I hope they like it.

Thank you for reading,
Julie