Multigrain Chocolate Chip Pancakes

If you've been following my blog you know that I have working on refining my breakfast habits. So far it is going very well. I have more energy and my two boys have been staying full longer in the morning. I thought that adding more whole grains into my family's diet would be very hard and I would be met with lots of complaints. I have been pleasantly surprised that I have been met with no complaints and many compliments from both of my children. It helps that I have found recipes that combine chocolate and whole grains, but a little bit of chocolate is fine in my book. For the most part I have almost given up using white flour except for once a week and my whole family feels better eating more whole-wheat flour, quinoa, and whole-wheat couscous. There really are a lot of healthy options for breakfast that also taste great. Last week I tried a new recipe for Multigrain Chocolate Chip Pancakes from the April issue of All You magazine, which looked delicious and perfect for a weekday morning breakfast.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes 10 minutes of prep and 5 minutes of cooking time and makes 8 pancakes. I actually had to go to multiple stores to find oat bran. I would have assumed that it would be easy to find something as simple as oat bran, but I was wrong. The only store in my area that had it in stock was the high end grocery store in the suburbs. As I have discussed in previous posts I was given a griddle last Christmas and I love it. It makes making pancakes so easy and they turn out perfect every time. Since I use a griddle I don't use oil or butter to coat. If the pancakes start sticking I spray olive oil, but it is rarely needed. I was able to get all of the pancakes on the griddle at once, which was much more convenient than doing them in batches. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My two boys really liked these pancakes. I thought that without the maple syrup they weren't sweet enough. I would suggest adding a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract to make the pancakes sweeter, especially if you are topping them with butter only. When topped with maple syrup it helped with the pancakes being on the dry side. They were great when topped with syrup or would also work well with the addition of vanilla and powdered sugar. Another great way to get whole grains in your breakfast routine.

For the recipe go to Multigrain Chocolate Chip Pancakes.