Whole Wheat Oat Pancakes

I'm always trying to improve my recipes in the kitchen. I invent stuff and kind of assume it's going to suck so I don't write down the recipe as I create it. And I don't measure stuff either, so if something comes out awesome sometime's it's a fluke and I can't re-create it.

As of late I've been doing some weird stuff with my old oat pancakes and not writing any of it down. It's been a rollercoaster of weird and deliciously different health pancakes every saturday morning at our house; Random spoonfuls of applesauce, crushed ripe banana, ground flax, and coconut oil are some of the new ingredients I've been adding to pancakes.

This morning before breakfast B was cutting the grass and I decided to finally tackle cleaning out my baking cupboard (yeah, I used to be a full-time baker, can you believe it?) One of the first things I stumbled upon was an opened bag of stone ground whole wheat flour. Naturally I changed my priorities immediately and started concocting a new pancake recipe around this old, possibly stale flour. Can flour go stale?

You can literally see the steam coming off of these little beauties. 

It felt right before I even started, so I measured and wrote down everything I put in here (on the back of an electric bill).  Let me tell you, I don't know what I was missing out on. These things are so perfect, so oh my god goooooood that you don't need any other recipe. These pancakes are better than Bob Evans whole grain pancakes, and a LOT healthier too.

Are you ready for this??

Recipe

1 cup Old Fashioned Oats (measured out whole, put into a blender / Ninja and turned into flour)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup milled flax
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
small "handful" of chia seeds (sorry, I know.)
pinch of sea salt

Whisk all of these dry ingredients together and then add...

1 1/2 cups milk (skim, almond, soy, coconut, whatev.)
1/3 cup egg whites
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/8 tsp (or just a teeny tiny dash of it if you don't have a 1/8 tsp) almond extract. 

Trust me on that almond extract. It makes a world of difference.

Whisk it all together and let it sit for 3-5 minutes. The oats and chia seeds will soak up the milk and it'll get thicker. If you have to, add a little more milk. The batter should stay fairly smooth like normal pancake batter, but never super watery. (I think if it were watery it would turn into a crepe, right??)

Cook over medium heat until the tops of the pancakes bubble (which they only sometimes do), or until your sixth sense tells you it's time to flip it. Try not to flip them more than once because it makes them tough.

I make two batches at a time and store them in a covered pyrex dish in the fridge so I can reheat them sunday morning too.

They're awesome, you'll love them, and you'll be super pumped you can now eat pancakes and not feel guilty.

Add some raw organic agave or real maple syrup and boom, healthy amazing awesome delicious pancakes. Doesn't get much better than this.