Tag: pancakes

Nate the Great’s Pancakes

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Travis came home from school on Friday not only so proud to report that his class was reading Nate the Great, but also that he had a pancake recipe from the book for us to try over the weekend! We adapted the book’s recipe slightly for our vegan household. Brother and sister both loved mixing this up!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 Ener-G eggs
  • 1/4 cup melted Earth Balance butter
  • 3 cups vanilla almond milk
  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder, stirring gently to combine.
  2. Add the Ener-G eggs, butter, and almond milk, stirring just until combined. Lumps are okay!
  3. Heat a griddle coated with additional Earth Balance and add aout 1/3 cup batter per pancake. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes on each side.

Serve with maple syrup, and then you’ll be ready to tackle any mysteries in the day ahead!

Moist Yogurt Pancakes with Strawberry Topping

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Special snow days off from school call for special breakfasts, and these decadent pancakes fit the bill! Note: you can grind your own oat flour from regular rolled oats, which is a cinch to do if you don’t want to purchase an entire bag of oat flour at the store.

Ingredients:

For the Strawberry Topping:

  • 1 cup chopped strawberries
  • 1/4 cup water

For the Pancakes:

  • 1 and 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup oat flour
  • 2 teaspoons + 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, divided
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1/2 cup apple juice
  • 2 cups plain non-dairy yogurt
  • 2 tablespoons melted Earth Balance butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Cooking spray
  1. To prepare the strawberry topping, combine the strawberries and water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until you can easily break the strawberries up with the back of a spoon. Set aside.
  2. Meanwhile, prepare the pancakes: combine the flour, oat flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk together the applesauce and remaining 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Add the apple juice, yogurt, vanilla, and melted butter.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, stirring just until combined.
  5. Heat a griddle coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Drop the batter on the surface and cook until bubbles appear, then flip and cook an additional 2 minutes or so on the other side.
  6. Top with the strawberry mixture to serve!

Little Passports: Russia

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Just in time for wintry weather here at home, Travis’s package from Little Passports was about cold and snowy Russia this month. Travis has been receiving Little Passports for a full year now, so the kit came with a country coin chart with 12 new empty spaces to fill.

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He added the sticker to his suitcase and proudly located Russia on the map (“Just look the for the biggest country!” I prompted him). The booklet featured fun activities with Russian history thrown into each, including a Faberge egg riddle to solve. The only one too advanced for my first grader was a word search based on the names of Russian towns.

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Souvenir:

Travis absolutely adored the small matryoshka doll that came with the package, his first time seeing one of these classic nesting dolls. Needless to say he needed to take it apart and put it back together many times.

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Further Activities:

This kit featured disappointingly few additional activities compared to previous packages. Travis did enjoy the template to make his own Space Comic, though, based on the history of space dogs Belka and Strelka.

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This was a great STEAM activity for kids! He was less interested in a Russian folk instrument coloring page, but did enjoy the additional photos and facts posted online.

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Finally, we read about Russian holiday traditions, particularly that New Year’s Day is a bigger celebration and time for presents in the country than Christmas morning. Perhaps we’ll have to save one present for under the tree on January 1 from “Father Frost”.

Recipe:

As always, we finished by bringing the country into our kitchen. The recipe for oladushki (thin pancakes) was complicated and messy, but I had happy little diners pretending they were in Russia at the end!

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Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
  • Scant 1 and 3/4 cups plain non-dairy milk
  • 1 tablespoon flaxseed
  • 3 tablespoons cold water
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 and 3/4 cups flour
  • 1 and 3/4 cups boiling water
  • 1/2 cup canola oil + more for frying
  1. To prepare the pancake batter, pour the cider vinegar into a liquid measuring cup. Add non-dairy milk to equal 1 and 3/4 cups, then let stand for 5 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, whisk together the flaxseed and cold water to make a flax egg; let stand for 5 minutes.
  3. Combine the milk mixture and flaxseed mixture in a small saucepan, along with the salt and baking soda. Heat over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl.
  4. Add the flour, 1 cup at a time, stirring after each addition. The batter should be quite thick at this point.
  5. Pour in the boiling water and 1/2 cup oil; whisk until combined.
  6. Heat an additional tablespoon or so of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1/4 cup batter and tilt the pan to spread toward the edges. Cook for 45 seconds, then flip and cook for about 30 seconds on the other side.
  7. Repeat with the remaining batter to make 16 pancakes.

We served these pancakes in two ways. The first night, they were savory for dinner, topped with either chopped and cooked chick’n…

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…or with a mixture of sauteed meatless crumbles and onion.

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In the morning, the leftovers became sweet for breakfast! The kids tried them with jam and agave nectar…

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…or with a little sweetened non-dairy sour cream (stir about 1/2 teaspoon sugar into each tablespoon sour cream).

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Designer Pancakes

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Today was Veronika’s first time at the stove! She’s not quite yet 2, so needless to say I supervised this activity very closely. But dripping pancake better is an excellent first stove-top activity, and will make toddlers feel like big helpers in the kitchen.

First up was whipping up a super simple pancake recipe, by whisking the following together in a big bowl:

1 and 1/2 cups almond milk

2 Ener-G eggs

4 tablespoons canola oil

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 and 1/2 cups flour

Toddlers can help with this part, too!

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I poured the batter into a liquid measuring cup and helped Veronika climb on a stool by the stove. Together, we held a big ladle and dripped the batter into a heated pan coated with cooking spray.

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When it’s your toddler’s turn, chances are the “design” of the pancakes will be completely random. But Veronika loved that she made “baby pancakes”, and we thought one looked like a caterpillar.

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Some of the small ones looked like little clouds in the sky.

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While she enjoyed sampling the first batch, I prepared a slightly more deliberate design: a pancake gingerbread man! Chocolate chips made eyes, a nose, and buttons.

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Veronika absolutely loved this activity, both the cooking and the eating of it.

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Blueberry Pancakes

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These pancakes have lots of sneaky good-for-you ingredients, like rolled oats, flaxseed, and of course fresh fruit. The result is thick pancakes that take a little longer to cook than a standard recipe, but make for a hearty breakfast.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • Scant 2 cups almond milk
  • 1 and 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
  • 2 Ener-G eggs
  • 1/4 cup canola oil
  •  1 pint fresh blueberries
  1. In a bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and flaxseed; set aside
  2. Pour the lemon juice into a measuring cup and add almond milk to equal 2 cups. Let stand for 5 minutes.
  3. Combine the almond milk mixture in a bowl with the oats. Whisk in the Ener-G eggs and canola oil.
  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and fold in the blueberries.
  5. Cook on a hot griddle for about 4 minutes, or until bubbles cover the top. Flip and cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes.

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To be honest, the blueberries were a bit of a miss, and mostly my kids ended up with purple-stained fingers from picking them out. Next time I would use strawberries, bananas, or even chocolate chips!

To wit, slices of ripe banana were deemed delicious in our second try:

Chocolate chips were a great variation, if not quite as healthy. For this round, I stirred 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips into the batter:

Similarly, fresh strawberries made much less of a mess than the blueberries, and everyone declared the switch a big hit:

Strawberry Pancakes

Strawberry Banana Yogurt

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This easy yogurt mixture is perfect for babies to spoon up themselves. Or serve it the way we like best – spooned over pancakes!

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup vanilla non-dairy yogurt
  • 1/2 cup chopped strawberries
  • 1/2 cup sliced banana
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  1. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, and stir to combine.

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Decorating Pancakes

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Anyone who follows this blog knows I love to cook with my kids, and I firmly believe in getting kids into the kitchen from the earliest age. It’s truly never too early; today Veronika helped me decorate pancakes, and she’s not quite 13 months old!

Okay, technically this was more of a sensory play activity than a real recipe, but we sure had fun. First, I whipped up a batch of pancakes. You can make some from scratch with your favorite recipe, but I took a shortcake with Cherrybrook Kitchen’s vegan and gluten-free mix. Veronika loved playing with extra measuring cups while I mixed the batter.

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For extra learning, I cooked the pancakes in heart- and star-shaped molds so I could talk about shapes with Veronika. Regular circles are just fine too, though!

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I set the pancakes down on the floor on paper plates along with a few pouches of baby food. Look for bright colors like pinks and reds for this activity.

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Veronika only needed me to demonstrate once before she was eagerly “decorating” her pancakes. She proudly pressed the spout of the pouch down on the pancakes, and I think even tried to say “squeeeeze” back to me.

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Of course there was the necessary tasting, too. Veronika: meet pancake.

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And the pouch itself got a sip or two.

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I had fun decorating right alongside her, creating a make-believe bakery game.

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When you’re done, you have breakfast or snack built right in to your day. Or if the pancakes get very mushy from all that baby food on top, just consider this a sensory play activity and it’s still a win-win.

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Even the wax paper we had on the floor for easy clean-up was fun!

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You’ll notice that I had Veronika do the activity without a shirt, which seemed the safest way to avoid stains. Plus, I love that little buddha belly these days!

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Purr-fect Pancakes

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Purr Pancakes (3)

These kitty-faced pancakes are the purr-fect way to kick off Memorial Day weekend (or any leisurely morning) to set the tone for a lazy summer ahead. After all, no one nails the art of napping quite like a cat. In sum, this fun twist on pancakes had Travis grinning.

Prepare a batch of your favorite pancakes – or  heck, just use a mix!

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We spread our pancakes with about 1 tablespoon maple syrup to help our fruit faces “glue” on.

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Add ears, noses, mouths, eyes, and don’t forget the whiskers! Ideally we would have used blueberries for the eyes, but a certain sous-chef ate them all up.

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Please share your animal face pancakes in the comments!

 

Power “Pancakes”

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Power Pancakes (1)

It’s a bit of a stretch to call these pancakes; although they cook up the same way on a griddle, they are a bit too delicate to come off cleanly with a spatula, meaning you wind up with a fluffy yummy mound on your plate. Still, my son describes them as “much good” and they’re a great protein boost early in the morning!

Ingredients:

  • 2 large bananas
  • 1 cup silken tofu
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons Earth Balance butter
  • 2 tablespoons mini non-dairy chocolate chips
  1. In a blender, combine the bananas and tofu; process until very smooth. Transfer to a bowl and stir in the baking powder.
  2. Melt the butter in a griddle over medium heat. Add half of the batter, to make 4 small pancakes. Sprinkle the tops evenly with 1 tablespoon chocolate chips. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until heated through, then very carefully transfer to plates.
  3. Repeat with the remaining batter and remaining chocolate chips.
  4. Drizzle with maple syrup to taste for serving!

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