Whole Grain Carrot Cake Pancakes

Not every summer is a golden summer. This might be especially true if you've got a booty load of kids coming home after 10 months of being at school. There can be fighting, jealousy, sibling rivalry, mosquito bites, broken arms, broken bikes, and let's not forget lost library books, Most moms have had summers like that or even just moments in their otherwise golden summers that are like that.

But there are also those summers--where the weather is warm, but not too warm, where you kids reach a perfect balance in their ages where they play together beautifully, imagining that they are spies or princesses, where they dress up their stuffed animals and do cartwheels and paint each other's faces with face paint. There are summers where you read together on the couch still in your pajamas at ten in the morning, when you children sit for hours learning how to do origami animals while you clean your house or die of peaceful shock, when you make pancakes and no one even complains that it's not Lucky Charms. Sweet sweet summers. Or at least some sweet sweet moments in an otherwise hectic summer.

It is that golden summer that I wish to write about today. For a golden summer like this, you need a golden pancake.

I invented this lovely beauty last week when I was making a carrot cake for a friend bright and early(ish) in the morning. I accidentally grated too many carrots. What was a woman to do? Honestly, I thought about just making more cake batter and pouring that awesomeness onto a skillet. But then I repented of that evil (sort of). And realized that if I reduced the sugar and oil a bit and added whole wheat flour instead of white, I would have a right decent little pancake--a bit on the sweet side still, but loaded with whole grain and carrots.

They were delicious. You can eat them plain or with nut butter because they're already sweet, but if you happened to drizzle on a bit of syrup or (cough) some leftover cream cheese frosting, I won't tell anyone.

Whole Grain Carrot Cake Pancakes
Makes about 10 smallish pancakes
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes for the batch
Cost: $.80 (That's breakfast for $.08/pancake. No breakfast cereal can compete with that on price or nutrition because, hello, you just ate carrots for breakfast)
sugar: .05, oil: .10, egg: .10, carrots: .20, whole wheat flour: .20, milk: .15

1/4 C sugar
1/4 C neutral oil, such as canola
1 egg
1 C grated carrots
scant 1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon (can even do 1 1/2 tsp if you love cinnamon)
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 C whole wheat flour
1-1 1/2 C milk (or buttermilk)

Combine sugar and oil. Add egg. Add carrots. Mix in dry ingredients. Then whisk in milk just until combined.

Drop by 1/4 C "spoonfuls" onto a skillet (set just below medium works best for me). Cook until the underside is golden (and they've puffed up). Then flip and cook until the other side is golden.

Enjoy plain or with toppings. (P.S. I added a few white chocolate chips and milk chocolate chips, solely for experimental purposes I assure you. Experiment successful.)

PRINTABLE RECIPE