Whole Wheat Pancakes!
Whole Grain Red Fife Pancakes
The size of a proper pancake is quite a sliding scale, but for us, this recipe makes around 10-12 pancakes, which feeds two adults and two little ones just fine. If you have a kitchen scale, use the gram measurements. It’s much faster, cleaner, and more accurate.
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups (200 grams) Whole Wheat Flour - All Purpose, Red Fife, Turkey Red, Spelt, Pastry or your favorite combination!
¾ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ¼ cups (275 grams) milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract (if desired)
3 tablespoons (45 grams) butter (or lard)
2 tablespoons (35 grams) honey (or sorghum syrup)
In a small saucepan, warm the honey and butter until the butter is just melted. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Whisk to combine. In another, slightly smaller bowl, combine the milk, eggs, and vanilla (optional). Whisk until the mixture is frothy and the eggs are well incorporated.
Add the liquid to the dry ingredients, and whisk until just combined. Slowly pour in the warm melted butter and honey mixture, whisking to incorporate. Be careful to not over mix.
Let the batter rest for 10-15 minutes (if you can possibly bear it), and preheat a heavy cast iron pan or griddle. Once the griddle is hot, reduce the heat to low. Observe your batter, and add a splash of milk if it seems a bit too thick. A well seasoned pan shouldn’t need any fat in the pan, but a little butter to grease the skids can’t hurt. Fry one up, and adjust the hydration to suit your tastes. We’ve found that a batter a little on the thick side makes a more pillowy pancake.
Variations:
Lickety split: If you’re in a hurry, you can skip the melted butter/lard and honey/sorghum step by just adding 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar to the dry ingredients and 3 tablespoons of neutral oil (canola, sunflower. etc) to the wet.
Sourdough pancakes: Do you have a 100% hydration sourdough starter discard that you need a use for? Mix in a cup or so with the liquid ingredients (provided it hasn’t gotten too sour/acidic). When we go this route, we like to replace ½ teaspoon of the baking powder with ¼ teaspoon of baking soda. This will make the batter nice and lively.