carrot cake pancakes

it's no secret that i stink at pancakes. no matter how many times i've tried to make plain old ordinary pancakes, i can't. they're either too thick, too thin, burnt, or not cooked all the way through. but when i saw this recipe for carrot cake pancakes in cooking light, i knew i wanted to try them...but put it off until i had the confidence to try them.

so this morning was my time to conquer the pancake. and i did it!

and they were delicious. more filling than i originally expected, which makes sense since i used 4 carrots in the batter.

i'm always on the lookout for a zucchini recipe, and as i was making them i realized all the spices are the same used in zucchini muffins i made last summer when our plants were taking over. so i see zucchini pancakes in our future this summer.

what worked

1. since i've had trouble with burnt/not cooked pancakes before, i timed the cooking time on each side this time. sounds like an obvious thing to do, but i never have. timing worked perfectly - they took 2 minutes on the first side and 1 on the flip side.
2. i like the fine texture from grating the carrot with my microplane instead of a box grater. the carrot taste was still there, without the chunks.

what didn't

1. the original recipe says it makes 12 1/2 cup pancakes. there's no way i could have gotten that much out of the batter.
2. next time i'm going to add a bit more of the spices to the batter. it was spicy, but just enough to think "this could use a touch more."
   

carrot cake pancakes
adapted from cooking light, janurary/february 2010

total time: 30 minutes, makes 7 pancakes

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
dash of nutmeg, ground cloves, ground ginger
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups finely grated carrot (i used my microplane rather than a box grater)

1. whisk together the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.
2. in a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients together - brown sugar, buttermilk, canola oil, vanilla, and eggs.
3. add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and mix just until moist and incorporated (there will be some lumps, that's ok). mix in the carrot.
4. heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. coat with nonstick spray or butter and spoon batter by 1/3 to 1/2 cup in the skillet. use the back of a spoon to spread out the pancakes a bit before they set.
5. cook about 2 minutes (until brown) and flip over and cook an additional minute.
6. serve with butter and maple syrup.