ambrosia: Healthy Jam-Swirled Silver Dollar Pancakes

There are certain things about being home that I love, and don't love. There's mostly good things, I promise though. I love being able to cook in a fully equipped and fully stocked kitchen, I love being home for delicious home-cooked meals, driving my dad insane with my sister, and getting to take a break from the hustle and bustle of school and Manhattan (although after a couple of days, I do start to miss it pretty terribly...). Being at home is great, but it does come with its downsides.

Number 1- I never get any school work done, because baking, taking photos, and editing photos is time consuming, and just plain more interesting.

Number 2- My eating schedule gets a little wonky. You see, I like to wake up early and get my baking started literally the second I get up. I can't be wasting precious moments of daylight, inspiration, and creativity on making myself an omelette (although it probably wouldn't hurt if I took ten minutes aside to make myself some breakfast), and then there's the inevitable necessity of sampling of my less-than-healthy (but delicious and hard to resist) food....

Number 3- I get lazy about working out, which is a problem. I love working out, and at school, I have no problem with fitting in 5-6 good workouts a week, but when I come home...that's a whole other story. I just have a hard time getting myself to exercise on my own when I'm home for some inexplicable reason that is completely beyond me....ugh.

In any case, I was able to resolve the second and third points of my problems with this very post. Ok, maybe not the third, but definitely the second. I figured I could solve my problem of skipping breakfast to go straight to cooking by simply making a breakfast post (well duh, right?).

I have a thing for pancakes. They're not documented enough on the blog just yet, as there are only two other recipes (see here and here), and while I mentioned in my last waffle post that I am still missing a recipe for French toast (which I'm also obsessed with, and actually need to get a move on and post a recipe for soon) on the blog, I couldn't help but gravitate towards pancakes. There's just something about having a stack of fluffy little pillows on your plate covered in sweet syrup that is just impossible for me to resist, and so, in light of that, I made more pancakes. I made some healthy, delicious pancakes with strawberry jam swirled throughout them, and yes, they were as good as they sound.

These pancakes are seriously good. They're healthy, vegan, and surprisingly delicious. I wasn't sure what to expect from a pancake made without eggs or real milk, but what I ended up getting was a batch of delicious, fluffy pancakes that were not dry in the slightest. They had a hint of whole wheat flavor which was balanced very nicely by the sweetness from the strawberry jam I used, and I couldn't have been more pleased with how they came out. What I liked best about them though, was the amount of batter the recipe yielded. It was the perfect amount of pancake batter for two people. A stack of 6 silver dollar sized pancakes makes for a filling breakfast, and this recipe is perfect for feeding two people without having to worry about having any lingering leftover pancakes (you know, those extra pancakes that you get tempted into eating even though you're full because you're convinced they just won't reheat nicely and be any good the next morning). You won't have that problem with this recipe! If you prefer, you can also just make 6 larger pancakes, which is still perfect for two people, and the recipe can double easily if you need to feed a larger crowd. What's not to love about a pancake recipe like this? Nothing, I tell you!

I intentionally sought to make a healthier pancake recipe after I was contacted by Mazola a few weeks ago (so exciting, I felt so legit!). I was sent a bottle of Mazola's corn oil, and was asked to make a healthy recipe featuring their product. Since I needed to solve my healthy eating at home and eating breakfast dilemmas, anddd incorporate Mazola corn oil into a recipe, these healthy pancakes were an obvious winner, since all three points would be solved, and like I said before, I couldn't have been happier with the results! Corn oil has a nice neutral flavor, so I was able to easily substitute the oil called for in the original recipe for Mazola corn oil, and when I used it to cook the pancakes on my griddle, the pancakes developed a beautiful golden brown exterior, just like when I use butter, only this time, it was done in a healthier way! It's nice to know that an oil like Mazola corn oil is versatile enough to lead to great results in baked applications, and can make my food more heart-healthy (corn oil can actually contribute to lowering cholesterol, and that's always a good thing!), which is another thing to love about these pancakes. Enjoy!

Healthy Jam Swirled Silver Dollar Pancakes
recipe adapted, slightly, from Joy the Baker

Ingredients

2 1/2 teaspoons Mazola corn oil
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (regular almond milk is fine too!)
splash of vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
2 generous spoonfuls of jam, plus more for topping (I used strawberry, my favorite)

Directions

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the almond milk, Mazola corn oil, and vanilla extract. In a medium sized bowl, combine both flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt, and whisk together to combine. Add the wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients, and stir a few times with a wooden spoon to combine. It's ok if there are still a few lumps in the batter! Let the batter rest for about 5 minutes as you heat up the griddle.

Heat about a tablespoon of Mazola corn oil in a griddle over medium heat. Once the batter has rested, stir in two generous spoonfuls of jam. Don't stir it in completely, leave a swirl in the batter!

Drop the batter by generous tablespoons onto the hot griddle, and cook until bubbles form along the edges. Flip the pancakes, and cook the other side until golden brown and cooked through. Cook the pancakes in batches, and use more oil as needed.