Or porridge pancakes, if you prefer. I first made these a few years ago, looking for an alternative to porridge in the mornings. I like porridge, but sometimes it’s hard to eat it first thing in the morning, especially in warm weather. However oats are very nutritious and keep you going til lunch, so I tried this again recently, and came up with these.
Now, there are a couple of ways you can prepare these pancakes. The first is to simply mix the ingredients together to make the batter: quick and simple. I call this the weekday method. It works well and produces a light, firm pancake.
The second method is to separate the eggs, and whisk the whites until foamy and stiff, and then fold them into the rest of the (already blended) ingredients. This method is more time consuming in two ways: firstly you’ve got to spend time whisking the whites, and secondly because it increases the volume of the pancakes by about 60%, you get more actual pancakes out of the batter, which of course takes more time to cook. This method produces a fluffier pancake. This is the weekend method.
The reason I offer two methods is because most of us are quite pushed for time in the mornings.
Another note: the quantities might seem a little odd. That’s because I have been playing around with the amounts used in order to create the perfect number of oatmeal pancakes for the husband unit and I. Using the weekday method, this produces five good-sized pancakes (two for me and three for my slightly hungrier husband). The weekend method yields 8 smaller, fluffier pancakes. They are smaller because the stiffer, egg-whitey batter doesn’t spread as wide as the runny batter. I find three is enough for me, and he gets five. Remember, these are more filling than pancakes made with white flour.
The photos here are of weekday pancakes.
Ingredients:
85g of oats, finely ground in the food processor, or 85g of oat flour (oat flour is great, but it is hard to find and it is CRAZY expensive)
2 eggs
150ml whole milk
Large pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon juice/white wine vinegar (adding an acid to pancakes with baking powder aids the fluffiness of the pancakes)
Butter, for cooking
Mix all ingredients together except the lemon juice/vinegar in the food processor until smooth. Remove to a jug. Add the lemon juice or vinegar and stir well. The mixture may bubble up a little as the acid reacts with the baking powder.
Cook the pancakes one or two at a time on a hot, flat heavy-bottomed frying pan (I use cast iron), using a little knob of butter for each pancake. The pancakes are ready to be flipped when they seem to be firming up around the edges and bubbles are rising on the surface.
Eat with bacon and maple syrup, or just a little jam or marmalade. I’m tempted to experiment with these bad boys to make savoury pancakes – adding cheese and chives and maybe garlic and black pepper. I’ll keep ye posted. 🙂