Love of Pancakes

We love pancakes around here. And lately we have been eating them alot. The increase in pancake intake came about with the purchase of an electric griddle. I was very excited awhile back to find a square electric griddle at our local Salvation Army. And I must admit it has been wonderful addition to my kitchen. Somehow cooking pancakes on an electric griddle instead of a frying pan is alot easier. Don't know why. Just seems that way to me.

While I've been known to use pancake recipes that are more detailed (and always worth it), of late our pancakes have been very simple. I have a pancake mix ready in my cupboard. I use one cup of the mix, add a cup of milk, one egg, alittle vanilla, and about a tablespoon of oil. Sometimes when I'm feeling nice I'll even add something extra such as applesauce or chocolate chips. :) The mix I use is from my mother-in-law's pancake recipe. I cut the dry ingredients in half to fit in the container I have. And while I follow her recipe that uses yogurt for when Mark is eating with us, lately I've stuck to my own variation. To make the amount of mix I make you mix the following together and store in air tight container.

3 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup while all purpose flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 tablespoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon salt.

Our renewed love of pancakes is more than the easy creation of the meal. It's also due to the easy in consumption. Both my boys can easily feed themselves pancakes. And recently, upon the suggestion from Angry Chicken's post in December, we have been eating them with powdered sugar rather than syrup. The boys love the sugar, and I have less sticky to clean up. Sure there is white on cloths and the table cloth, but somehow it doesn't bother me the way the sticky syrup does when it gets everywhere. :)

At first we would just use a spoon to put the powdered sugar on the pancakes. And I would love to get a big shaker. However, since I don't have one right now I decided to use a small glass salt shaker. I had this nice decorative salt and pepper shakers that I wasn't using and decided it was time to put them on our table. We got them to go with our dishes, so there was no reason for us not to use them daily. I then cleaned the clear glass set we had been using and once cleaned put powdered sugar in it.

While it takes some effort to get the sugar out it works. And I'm not worried about Ian dumping a ton on his pancakes anymore like he did with the spoon when I would let him do it himself. Of course, Ian's alittle upset about not getting as much, but he'll live. Besides Mama is happy with the situation. And when Mama is happy, so is everyone else.