Raspberry Pancakes

I know that every person that spends any time in the kitchen has that one fear. Be it pastry, yeast breads, or pancakes. Yup, I'll make bread a few times a week and if I had a need for a pie I wouldn't have a problem with making one. But pancakes, those are my nemesis. Pancakes are my Dad's specialty. The first day that everyone is all together at the cabin is always pancake day. Now I've never seen him make pancakes from scratch though. He always buys that Aunt Jemima Buttermilk Pancake Mix (I am not being compensated for this, and all opinions are my own) and adds eggs and oil and vanilla soy milk and then more pancake mix. His batter looks like paste as there is no measuring going on, just dumping things in (or so it would appear). I know a double batch is never enough, usually he ends up tripling or quadrupling. Anyway, if we have company they always take their first bite of pancake and you can see them thinking how can this taste like this, it comes from a box? Wanna know the secret? Of course you do. It's the soy milk. Vanilla, fat free soy milk. Even though it's fat free, it is still a million times richer, creamier and vanillaier than regular milk. Resulting in the best buttermilk pancakes (minus the buttermilk) that you could ever image. Then to top it off, they're cooked on a gas stove on an ancient old cast iron griddle (instead of the electric griddle we have at home). The end result is a pancake that looks like it's burnt to snot, but actually doesn't taste one bit charcoaled.

My dad even got one of the neighbourhood kids in a jam because he got the poor kid to confess that the pancakes were better than the ones his mom made. Of course that didn't go over so well with her.

So you can probably see why pancakes are my nemesis. I could count on my one hand how many times I've tried to cook pancakes and I could also tell you how many times I've wrecked them (those numbers would be equal). I either end of having them raw in the centre, or like shoe leather they are so tough because I'm trying to avoid the rawness. Yup, not good.

Today I decided to tackle them though, and while they weren't raw or tough, they were slightly burnt (and you could taste it because electric heat and teflon is not as forgiving as a flame and cast iron). All-in-all though, I was pretty happy and I will be making these again, probably with some slight adaptations (such as the addition of some lemon zest and a bit more lemon juice). The original recipe was intended to be a raspberry streusel pancake, which sounds amazing (plus it had coconut oil and coconut milk in it, yum), but I didn't go that route. When I have a chance I might make the original recipe just as it was written, but for today I decided to change things up and go raspberry lemon (you know it's my fave right?) instead.

Please check out the original Raspberry Streusel recipe at Baking Serendipity (who got it from Two Peas & Their Pod), as it still does look truly awesome and mine has been adapted a bit from the original.

Makes ~10 pancakes (1/3 C. batter each)

Ingredients

2 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour

2 Tbsp. Sugar

2 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Baking Soda

Pinch of Salt

2 C. Vanilla Almond Milk

2 Eggs

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla

1 Tsp. Lemon Juice

Zest of 1 Lemon

1 C. Raspberries

Directions

~Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, powder, soda & salt) in a large bowl.

~Add in the wet ingredients (milk, eggs, oil, vanilla and lemon juice) & stir.

~Wash & smash raspberries with a fork then fold berries and lemon zest into batter. (It's okay if the batter is slightly lumpy.

~Scoop batter (I used a 1/3 C. measuring cup to transfer the batter) onto a hot and greased griddle or skillet.

~Flip when bubbles in the centre burst.

~Cook the other side until it is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Nutrition Facts
Per 1 Pancake
Makes: 10 (1/3 C. Batter) Pancakes
Calories: 160
Carbs: 29g
Fat: 4g
Protein: 6g