Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes

I like making things from scratch. I may not have the most amazing top-quality ingredients in my house, or be a classically trained chef, but making things from their simplest parts (or those available at the grocery anyway - I'm not even close to self-sufficient) just tastes better than pre-mixed boxed things.

Here, for example, we have pancakes. The boxed powder stuff has its purpose, sure. It's quick and easy and hey, it's not bad tasting. But it's not real pancakes. This weekend I made the kids these Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes, which is just a basic pancake recipe very slightly doctored up, and they were delighted. They told me it was "much better than the old recipe", which was not so much a recipe as it was a panel on the side of a box. It's true, they are better. And guess what? They don't take that much longer, either. You might get a few extra measuring spoons dirty, but it's totally worth it.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes

Ingredients
1c buttermilk (or 3/4c milk + 2 T vinegar or lemon juice)
1c flour
2T sugar
1t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1/2t salt
1 egg
2T melted butter (or vegetable oil)
1t vanilla extract
chocolate chips
cooking spray

Steps
1. Measure buttermilk and set aside. Or, if using regular milk, mix with vinegar or lemon juice and set aside to sour.
2. In a large bowl or measuring device with spout, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl or measuring device with spout, whisk together buttermilk or soured milk, egg, melted butter or oil, and vanilla extract.
4. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and whisk until all lumps are gone.
5. Heat a griddle or frying pan on medium heat. Spray with cooking spray. Pour pancake batter onto pre-heated griddle to desired pancake size. Sprinkle desired amount of chocolate chips onto upright side of pancake. Cook until edges begin to dry slightly and small bubbles form in middle of top. Flip with spatula. Cook pancake until underside is brown.
6. Remove from pan. Serve!

Yield - about 8 medium-sized pancakes
(Adapted from "Fluffy Pancakes" by Kris on allrecipes.com)


I made 8 pancakes with this recipe, using 2% milk soured with lemon juice, vegetable oil, and a total of 16 grams of mini chocolate chips. Putting this into the LoseIt! app on my phone gave me a count of 136 calories per pancake.

Right after I made them, I thought I should have experimented with subbing brown sugar for some of the white sugar. I bet that would have given an even more 'cookie' taste. I will play with that next time, and update with how that went.

Now, the steps in pictures. I know my pictures are not great, but I can't get better if I don't practice, right?

The making of Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes

If you are prepared enough to have buttermilk on hand- good for you. I was not, and didn't have vinegar, either, so I used milk soured with lemon juice.

Dry ingredients assembled and my helper whisking them up. That's the souring milk sitting to the side, there.

Liquid ingredients assembled, my helper whisking them up, and the final batter. I had pulled out butter to use, but ultimately measured out vegetable oil instead, simply because I was too lazy to melt the butter.

Preheat the pan and spray it with cooking spray. We like to call the first batch the 'tester batch', as they usually end up ugly while we wait for the pan to heat.
Have your chocolate chips at the ready while you're preparing your pan. I used mini semi-sweet chocolate chips because I had them handy, but regular sized or whatever you like will do.
See how nicely light browned the first side is after flipping? I find that looking at the bubbles can be a little deceiving - these seem to bubble a lot! - but waiting for that slight drying around the edge is more helpful.

Pancakes!
I like to eat them plain, as the chocolate is plenty of sweet, but you could add syrup, fruit, whipped cream, powdered sugar, or whatever you typically enjoy on pancakes.

The Big One is asking me if he can have them again this morning.

Update:
I tried them wit half brown sugar and half white and didn't really notice a difference. So, use whatever you'd like.