hearty healthy pancakes

I have a picture! This is my rendition of healthy pancakes. Plating would be nicer if I had some fruit to garnish with.

Usually my grocery trips revolve around what's on sale, rather than what I need. This tactic saves me a lot of money, but sometimes I end up not having food to eat a certain meals. Usually breakfast is forgone, leading me to struggle for a solution to my morning meal. I met up with a friend for coffee this morning and I bought myself some coffee and banana bread. To my dismay, the coffee tasted burnt and the bread, dry. Weariness prevailed but hunger did not. I finished the coffee for the caffeine, but opted not to do the same for the banana bread. By the time I got home, I was famished. After a quick rummage through my pantry, I decided upon pancakes for my second breakfast.

I based my recipe off of the highest, most reviewed one on allrecipes.com. I halved the recipe and made a few edits to fit the ingredients I had on hand and to make it healthier. It ended up looking something like this:

hearty healthy pancakes

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

dash of salt

1/2 egg

1/4 cup vanilla yogurt

1/4 cup water

2/3 cup soy milk

1/2 cup milled oats

1 tbsp coconut oil

Combine everything, mix well till incorporated. Lightly grease a pan and turn burner onto medium high heat. Pour mix with 1/3 cup scoops (larger or smaller as preferred). Flip once the pancake starts bubbling consistently. Serve with agave nectar syrup and powdered sugar.

Notes: Coconut oil is a solid at room temperature. It's very solid when mixed with fridge temperature soy milk. I'd recommend microwaving it for a few seconds to melt it so it incorporates better with everything. I'm not sure if I would substitute coconut oil for vegetable oil next time though. It might be a little healthier, but I didn't notice a difference in taste. It did, however, carry a faint aroma of coconuts.

I added much more soy milk than I needed. I didn't originally include it in my recipe, hoping that a mix of yogurt and water would suffice for the lack of milk. The mix turned out very thick and dry so I started pouring in soy milk little by little. The last pour was too much, resulting in very thin pancakes, rather than a nice puffy feel. The original recipe also included a 1/2 tbsp of sugar, but I forsook that with the addition of the yogurt.

Whole wheat flour definitely has a unique taste unto itself and if you're not used to it, or expecting it to taste like regular flour, it might be an unpleasant surprise. The oats cooked well and didn't make the pancakes as crunchy as I feared they might. I might even dare to double the amount of oats next time.