Kiki's Pancakes

I know this is only my 6th post, so I'm sorry that this is already my 2nd recipe post - but trust me this recipe is totally worth it!  

     About a year ago I wanted pancakes but we didn't have any pancake mix, so I decided to go online and find a yummy pancake recipe.  We also didn't have eggs and I wasn't planning on leaving the house to go buy any ingredients, so I searched for an egg-less pancake recipe and stumbled upon this little gem.  It's a recipe for blueberry pancakes (which I will also post below), and they are fantastic!!  One thing I especially like about this recipe is that it makes 1 serving.  At our house it's just my husband and I, and I have a habit of cooking for an army, so this recipe is kind of nice that way.  Though, sometimes we times the recipe by 10 and freeze the pancakes because then you can just pop them in the toaster on a work morning when you don't have time to cook.  They freeze well.  
     I'm not the only one who loves this recipe - my niece and nephews love them too, and so do their parents!  When my sister had her 2nd baby I made a big batch of these and froze them so her family could have easy breakfasts, because they had their hands full with a 2 year old and a new born.  My then 2 year old nephew is now almost 3 and whenever they have pancakes he still asks if they are Kiki's pancakes.  I also made these pancakes when my brothers family was in town.  A few days later I got a text asking for the recipe because my niece wanted the pancakes Kiki made.  My niece and nephews have parents that don't feed their children just anything.  My brothers kiddos love green smoothies and frequently ask for fruit as their dessert.  These pancakes are parent-approved!  They have oats in them, and the blueberries and vanilla extract make them sweet, so you can omit the sugar, plus oil is optional.  
     Now that I've gotten you so excited about these yummy pancakes, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:  (Remember this is for 1 serving, makes 2-3 pancakes)
- 1/3 cup of flour
- 2 Tbsp of rolled oats
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2/3 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup of milk
- I add 1 Tbsp of oil and reduce the milk by that amount but again this is optional.
- 1/2 cup blueberries

Directions:
Mix all of the dry ingredients, then add the wet.  Stir, then fold in the blueberries.  Grease the griddle then cook your pancakes at 250*- 300*.  These pancakes are thicker so they need to cook at a lower temp for a longer time so that they cook all the way through.  Flip each pancake once.  Then devour the deliciousness!

     Since we fell in love with this recipe we have created many variations of it.  One of my nephews loves blackberries, so often times we replace the blueberries with blackberries - SO yummy!  I would imagine you could replace the blueberries with just about any berry you'd like.  Believe it or not, I don't always have fresh fruit in my house, so we have made them as just plain old pancakes too.  When I make them without fruit, I also take out the cinnamon, basically just because I'm not a huge cinnamon fan and when you don't have fruit in them, the cinnamon flavor really stands out.  
     My new favorite variation on these pancakes is Banana Chocolate Chip!  This morning I had a couple bananas that were getting old, and we had chocolate left over from Valentines day, so I decided to make Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes!  All I can say is YUM!

Here is the ingredient list for the Banana Chocolate Chip version:
- 1/3 cup of flour
- 2 Tbsp of rolled oats
- 2/3 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup of milk
- 1 large ripe banana, mashed
- 1/4 cup of chocolate chips.  (I just cut up "fun sized" Hershey bars to make chocolate chunks, but I would guess it was about 1/4 cup.  You can add as many chocolate chips as you would like.)

Mix and bake as you would in the recipe above, and again devour the yummy-ness!! 

     I plan to continue coming up with new variations since they all seem to turn out so well, so I will keep you posted on any extra great ones.  Maybe I'll have to try something maple-nutty or something less healthy like s'mores, or super healthy like "green" pancakes!