Gingerbread Pancakes

It's difficult to classify these pancakes as either dinner or dessert: they're moderately sweet and gingerbread-spiced while also being a traditional breakfast food.  So, turning breakfast-for-dinner on its head (dessert-for-dinner?!), here's a recipe for Gingerbread Pancakes. 

Dinner or dessert?

This isn't the most nutritious dish on this blog, but these pancakes do make a cold fall night just a little bit sweeter. 

Recipe:     
Gingerbread Pancakes

• 1.75 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg or 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 egg-equivalents (we used Ener-G Egg Replacer Powder)
  
• 3/4 cup vegan sour cream
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 3 tablespoons canola oil

First, mix together the flours, brown sugar, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg in a large bowl.  Form a well in the center of the mixture and set aside. 

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg-equivalents, sour cream, water, molasses, and oil.  Then pour this into the center of the flour mixture and stir until just moistened (there may be a few lumps).

To cook the pancakes, first heat a lightly-greased griddle or skillet over medium heat.  When the pan is hot, pour pancakes (1/4 cup of batter per pancake) onto the pan and spread the batter, if necessary.  Allow the pancakes to cook for about 2 minutes before flipping them over to the other side -- when it's time to flip the pancakes, they should look bubbly and the edges should be slightly dry.  Cook until the pancakes are golden brown on each side. 

Serve warm.  You can top them with your favorite pancake accompaniments, but they are also good on their own.  Yields 16 pancakes. 

Comments:

Taste:            

If you're some who enjoys thick, cakey pancakes, you'll love these: they're fairly dense, rather than light and airy.  They have just the right amount of sweetness (considering we ate these pancakes at dinnertime), and they have a great fall flavor.  As I mentioned in the recipe, above, I didn't even need to top them with anything. 

Accessibility:          

We found vegan sour cream at our local grocery store (and even though the sour cream comes in a larger quantity than vegan cream cheese, it was cheaper!).  As I've noted before, egg-replacer powder might be difficult to find, but it keeps in your pantry.   

  Ease of Preparation:    

Although pancakes are generally a pretty quick and easy food to prepare, these pancakes were a bit more challenging because of the thickness of the batter.  It was pretty difficult to spread out the batter on the hot pan, and our pancakes certainly did not come out in perfect circles.  Next time, I might try reducing the sour cream to 1/2 cup and increasing the water to 1 cup to thin out the batter a bit.

Non-vegan friendliness:           

I'm not sure we'll make these pancakes for dinner again; but, as far as pancakes go, these take the cake in non-vegan friendliness.