These were billed as "whole wheat pancakes", but they've got a whole lot more going on than just a bit of whole wheat flour! The main bulk of the dry ingredients is made up of rolled oats and whole wheat flour, but then you also have wheat germ, oat bran, and sesame seeds as well as inclusions of raisins, walnuts, and apple. I've never had pancakes with sesame seeds in before. It made for an interesting addition. I'm not sure how well they harmonized with the other ingredients, but I found it quite intriguing. In future I might be tempted to swap out the sesame seeds for flax seeds as I think they might complement the other flavours a little better, but the sesame certainly wasn't bad, I just don't think it was optimal.

I also think it would be fun to play around with other inclusions for these. I really liked the rainsins and walnuts, but I felt like they could've done with even more goodies inside. I would've liked more dried fruit and I think a hit of orange would've played very nicely with the cinnamon and walnut already in the mix. I'd be inclined to add a little orange zest and some dried cranberries next time.

Interesting Pancakes

Adapted from The Spruce Eats

Ingredients

• 2 c. milk
• 3/4 c. plain yogurt
• 1 large egg
• 3/4 c. rolled oats
• 2 Tbsp. honey
• 1 1/4 c. whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 2 Tbsp. canola (or other neutral) oil
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 tsp. orange zest (optional)
• 1/2 c. raisins
• 1/4 c. dried cranberries (optional)
• 1/4 c. walnuts, finely chopped
• 1/4 c. sesame seeds or flax seeds
• 1/4 c. wheat germ
• 1/4 c. oat bran or wheat bran¹
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 apple, grated

Directions

1. Combine milk, yogurt, and egg and mix well.
2. Stir in oats and honey.
3. Cover and chill overnight or up to three days.
4. The next morning (or several days later), add flour and baking powder and stir to combine.
5. Stir in oil, vanilla, sea salt, and orange zest (if using).
6. Add raisins, cranberries (if using), walnuts, sesame (or flax) seeds, wheat germ, oat (or wheat) bran, and cinnamon and stir to combine.
7. Stir in apple.
8. Heat pan over medium heat. Oil it if necessary.
9. Once the pan is good and hot, start making your pancakes. Use ~1/4 c. of batter per pancake.
10. Once the underside is well-browned and the sides are starting to look dry, flip the pancake(s) and cook the other side.
11. Once both sides are browned and the pancakes are cooked through, remove from pan and repeat the process until all the batter has been used.
12. Serve pancakes warm with butter, applesauce, and/or maple syrup.

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¹ I didn't remember until after I'd already started mixing up the batter that we'd finally ditched our last little bit of oat bran when we moved. I ended up just tossing in an extra 1/4 c. of oats to make up for the missing bran. Not quite as high fibre maybe, but it still seemed ot work out okay. ^Back