When the weekend rolls around, I want relatively quick, tasty and filling meal in the morning. We usually get up late enough that we don’t eat both breakfast and lunch, instead relying on our brunch to fill us up until dinner. But we’re also more inclined to go for a traditional breakfast food instead of something more lunchy. Thus, we fall back on pancakes a lot. The batter goes together in a flash, and the whole batch cooks up in less than 20 minutes usually. Normally we go for Alton Brown’s standard buttermilk pancakes, which is our favorite recipe, but last weekend I wanted to mix it up a bit to keep us from getting bored. Flipping through AB’s book I’m Just Here for More Food, I decided to go for the whole wheat pancakes, which are almost identical to the regular pancakes, they just use whole wheat flour instead.

Alton Brown mixes his pancakes in what he calls the “Muffin Method.” Like many of his methods, it starts by combining all the dry ingredients together and all the wet ingredients together first, making sure they are well combined. One thing I should mention is that I never have buttermilk around the house, so I always substitute a little less than 2 cups of milk plus two tablespoons of lemon juice. I actually prefer this combination to the buttermilk because it makes the batter more liquid and the pancakes spread better on the griddle.

The dry and wet ingredients are then combined; more precisely, the wet ingredients are always added to the dry, which makes it easier to mix without overmixing.

See the lumps peeking out? It is important to not try to get the batter smooth, which will result in flat pancakes. Just make sure it’s all combined, and that all the flour has been mixed in from the sides and bottom of the bowl. At this point, the batter rests for 5 minutes.

You can cook the pancakes in a frying pan or sauté pan, but a non-stick griddle pan is the best. No oil or butter needed!

They were definitely tasty, with more body than the regular pancakes. The 100% whole wheat did give the pancakes somewhat of a coarser texture, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I think in the future I might go for the best of both worlds and do 1/2 all-purpose flour and 1/2 whole wheat. Regardless, I know they’ll be on our plates again.

Whole Wheat Pancakes (adapted from Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for More Food)

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 large eggs
• slightly less than 2 cups milk, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Directions

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk well. In a medium-sized bowl whisk the wet ingredients until thoroughly combined
2. Stir wet ingredients in to the dry ingredients and mix until the batter just comes together. Do not overmix; there should be lumps left in the batter. Allow the batter to rest for 5 minutes.
3. While the batter is resting, preheat a griddle pan over medium-low heat. If the pan isn’t nonstick, rub it down with a little butter. The griddle is ready when water dances across the surface.
4. Ladle 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form in the batter and the bottom is golden, approximately 3 minutes. Flip and cook until the second side is golden, about 2 minutes.
5. Serve right away or keep the pancakes warm in an oven set to “warm”, or the lowest heat setting.

I’ve never made a full size Dutch Baby aka Dutch Baby Bunny aka German Pancake, but I was intrigued by these small ones that are baked in muffin tins from Make and Takes. The unlike some recipes, this batter doesn’t include any sugar and isn’t inherently sweet, which apparently makes it equivalent to Yorkshire Puddings. For me, however, it will become sweet, eggy, Dutch baby pancakes.

I neglected to take any pictures of the batter before it was mixed together, but given the small number of ingredients it’s pretty straightforward. There are 6 eggs in this batter, which makes it supremely eggy, but when combined with flour and butter, the reaction is like magic…

Pop up! When they first came out of the oven they were really high, but then they sank down a little as they cooled.

This recipe makes enough to fill more than one 12-muffin pan, and the only other muffin pan I have makes gigantic muffins. I got three more out of the batter after filling the wells of standard muffin pan about half full, and those did some serious popping.

Doused with maple syrup and dusted with powdered sugar, these little Dutch baby pancakes were very tasty and made a great alternative to the same old buttermilk pancakes. As I mentioned, there’s actually no sugar in the batter, so these could even be used in a savory dish (which is after all what they are used for as Yorkshire Puddings).

Baby Dutch Baby Pancakes (courtesy of Make and Takes)

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup flour
• 6 eggs
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• dash salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2. Combine all ingredients in a medium sized bowl and whisk thoroughly to combine.
3. Fill wells in a greased standard muffin pan about half full. You’ll likely have more than what will fill in one muffin pan, so have a second one ready for overflow.
4. Bake for 15 minutes, or until puffy and golden on top.