So my toddler has unknowingly eaten carrots, squash, zucchini, and sweet potatoes this week. He's actually a very good eater for someone his age, but he gets a little picky with the veggies sometimes. Since he has a weakness for anything in bread form, I've been sneaking veggie purees into muffins, breads, and pancakes. I've borrowed heavily from the cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, and so far her recipes have worked out great for me. Except one.
Her sweet potato pancakes look wonderful in the picture, complete with syrup dripping down the sides. And somehow she accomplished this using just pancake mix, water, sweet potato puree, and cinnamon. Not sure how she got her pancakes to be so fluffy and yummy-looking without using eggs or milk. Let's just say my first batch of pancakes looked nothing like the picture in the cookbook. They actually looked like this.
Aren't you proud of me for sharing this ultimate FAIL with you? :o)
I still had enough sweet potato puree for another batch, so I took a deep breath, scraped the gooey remains of the first batch off our griddle, and experimented a bit. {How's this for funny. My kid still ate a couple of the "ruined" pancakes. I figured since there were no eggs in them there really wasn't anything in there that could harm him if he ate them like that. He thought they were good. Go figure.} And as luck would have it, the second batch came out great. Here it is!
The Ingredients.
1 cup pancake mix (I used Aunt Jemima's Whole Wheat Blend pancake mix to get some whole grains in there)
1 cup buttermilk (or regular milk)
1 egg
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1/4 cup water
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cinnamon (to taste)
The Method.
Preheat your skillet or griddle to medium-high heat. Mix all of the ingredients together until combined. Coat the skillet or griddle with oil or nonstick spray, and begin to spoon the batter onto it using a 1/4 cup measure. Cook for 3 minutes, or until bubbles start to form and the edges are firm. Flip the pancakes and cook for another 3 minutes on the second side. Repeat with the remaining batter. Server with an additional sprinkle of cinnamon or a little syrup.
Note: I actually had our griddle up pretty high, and I think it took my pancakes longer than 3 minutes per side to cook. This batter tends to be thicker than most pancake batters because of the sweet potato puree, so that might have been why. You may want to add a little more water to the batter until it's the consistency you like, and also play around with the temperature and cooking time since it may vary.
I thought these tasted very good. And using pancake mix as a base made them really easy to make. I kept a few out for breakfast tomorrow, and put the rest in the freezer. Along with zucchini-blueberry bread slices. And peanut butter and jelly muffins with carrot puree. And applesauce muffins with squash puree. Sneaky sneaky. :o)
The only time I have trouble with pancakes sticking is when I omit the eggs (because we've run out of them). Or when I try to start cooking them before my griddle is at the perfect temperature. But the eggs really seem to make the most difference!
ReplyDeleteGood job sneaking the healthy stuff in. Is hubby eating it too, or does he know what you are up to? ;)
yeah i'm really not sure how the original recipe was supposed to work without eggs. randall has eaten some of the healthy stuff; i think he suspects something whenever i try any new recipe, but he just doesn't ask (he really liked the applesauce muffins with squash). i figure if he asks, i'll tell him...why rock the boat. :o)
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